The Philippine Development Foundation-USA (PDF), newly formed US-based Filipino development group is pushing for Philippine government to grant incentives for the creation of technology business incubators and business parks in order to nurture start-up investments in commercially-viable research and development fields in drug-making, food production and software.

Microsoft launched last week its latest product to its customers in the Philippines – the Microsoft Office 2010 and Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Microsoft Vision 2010 and Microsoft Project 2010.
The software giant expects its new products to significantly benefit Filipino business in terms of productivity and gains and to give them higher returns on their software [...]

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said that approximately 11 million Filipino households do not have bank accounts.
BSP Governor Amando Tetangco Jr. said, “Rough estimates indicate that at the most, only one-third of our households have bank accounts,” during a conference of the Rural Bankers Association of the Philippines held recently at the Sofitel Philippine [...]

A lower fees in their remittances will be enjoyed by overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) and their beneficiaries starting on the third quarter of the year. According to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), this will materialize once the the Philippine Payments and Settlements System (Philpass) Remit System becomes fully operational.
Remittances sent through the Philpass Remit [...]

Saturday, April 10, 2010 marks the first day of voting for Filipino overseas, which according to the Department of Foreign Affairs, proceeded smoothly.
Voters in Hong Kong said the automated process was “fun and simple” and most of them took less than 3 minutes to cast their voted, feed their ballots in the precinct count optical [...]

The sale of $500 million in retail treasury bonds (RTBs) has been launched by the government. This investment instruments are intended for overseas Filipino workers. They are the Fixed Rate Multicurrency Retail Bonds and they will be auctioned on April 20 and will be offered to investors on the same day until April 27, according [...]

Every year the SGV Foundation conducts the Search for the Philippines’ Entrepreneur of the Year (EoY) to encourage more entrepreneurs to help bring progress to the country. Recently, it just announced the start for this year’s search.
Nominees for this search must be Filipino entrepreneurs whose business have been in operation for at least two to [...]

Philip Morris International, Inc. (PMPI) joined forces with Philippine a cigarette company forming one big corporation that will control about 90 percent of the country’s lucrative cigarette market. The US-based tobacco giant formed a new company with local rival Fortune Tobacco Corp. (FTC), which is owned by Chinese-Filipino tycoon Lucio Tan.

Now, overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) and even foreign investors outside the country can check a real estate property they are interested in, without necessarily being in the Philippines. That is because the Philippine Chamber of Real Estate and Builders Association (CREBA) have deployed in the Internet the Philippines’ first fully-automated Web GIS parcellary mapping service. [...]

UST Global inaugurated recently its new offshore development center in McKinley Hills, Taguig City. The new center is part of the company’s aggressive expansion plans in Asia, and is targeting to haul in $32 million revenues in its first year and catering to 2,000 clients in North America and Europe.

Bibingkinitan! has embarked on an aggressive campaign to expand its number of outlets this year. The fast-rising Filipino food chain is aiming to open up about 100 new outlets all over the country, to bring its total number of stores to at least 250 by the end of 2010.
Richard V. Sanz, president and chief executive [...]

The Philippine flag-carrier, the Philippine Airlines (PAL) will be resuming its service to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on March 28, 2010, after four years its absence in the said city. The PAL decided to bring back its flight to Riyadh in response to the clamor of more than two million Filipino Overseas Worker (OFW) communities in [...]

More jobs await Filipinos overseas this year. The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) said that Filipinos, particularly nurses, caregivers and factory workers, can look forward to more jobs in Japan and South Korea.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia still tops the list of land-based destinations of overseas Filipino workers, according to the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA). The agency also said that the Saudi Arabia even improved by 8.2 percent in terms of the number of OFWs deployed as of October 2009.

Online games always a ready audience in the Filipino market. There is a big market for Filipino online gamers, although most the games were created outside the country. A group of Filipinos with entrepreneurial mindset is eyeing to cash in on this online gaming craze capturing Filipinos from all walks of like.

Our local animators have already proven themselves in the international arena, and their works have sought by many big international animation film companies. Now, they are hoping that Filipino animators would gain an even bigger spot on the world animation map.
The Animation Council of the Philippines Inc. (ACPI) is advocating “creative process outsourcing” CPO and [...]

The applications of the more than 10,000 World War II Filipino and Filipino-American veterans have been approved by the US Embassy’s Veterans Affairs Office. This gives them part of the P5.8-billion budget allocated for this purpose.

MoneyGram International and Smart Communications, Inc. tied up to provide families of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) the convenience of wireless “wallet” service. OFWs may now send their remittances to their families in the Philippines faster through the facility which is likened to a “cross border wallet service.”

The RD Corporation, a Filipino owned company, is planning to expand its investment in the tuna cannery business and is earmarking about $15 million for its prospect. This was disclosed by RD Group chairman Rodrigo Rivera, who said that they will be starting the new cannery by the first quarter of 2010 and will be [...]

Starting early next year, flag-carrier Philippine Airlines (PAL) will be adding Brisbane to its key destinations to boost profits and market performance in Australia. The PAL is eyeing a twice-weekly service direct to Brisbane, Queensland, and twice a week via Melbourne. It will be using a 320-seater Airbus 330-300 aircraft.