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The total harvest area for palay nationwide may widen by nearly 32,000 hectares in the first half of the year from the year-ago level, possibly lifting national rice production by 1.2 percent, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) has projected.

A marine ecologist warned that the majority of marine ecosystems in Philippine seas are facing severe risks of degradation, despite the country’s stature as one of the best diving destinations in the world.

The Philippine government, together with Japan, are working together to speed up the rehabilitation of the Metro Rail Transit 3 (MRT-3).

With the Budget Reform Act being tagged as one of the priority bills up for early approval in the Senate, the national government is well-positioned to shift to an annual cash-based budgeting system starting next fiscal year.

Former Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima has underscored the necessity of instituting long-overdue reforms in the corporate tax system to bolster the country’s competitiveness as he expressed his full support for the proposal to modernize incentives for businesses and reduce the corporate income tax (CIT) rate to improve the collection efficiency of revenue agencies.

The passage of The Ease of Doing Business and Efficient Government Service Delivery Act of 2018 will help improve the country’s ranking in the World Bank and International Finance Corporation’s (IFC) 2019 Doing Business Report, Trade and Industry Undersecretary Rowel Barba said.

An international civil society network challenged the ADB in its 51st Annual Governors Meeting to address the clear calls for transparency and accountability of its projects and operations amid a looming infrastructure investment collaboration between the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and its touted rival the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).

Asian Development Bank (ADB) private sector operations over the past year reached $2.3 billion, growing the bank’s overall portfolio of private sector operations by 17 percent to $10.9 billion, according to ADB Private Sector Operations Department’s (PSOD) Development Effectiveness Report 2017.

The Korean Embassy in Manila said over the weekend the Korean government is funding most of the USD199-million New Cebu International Container Port Project through an official development assistance (ODA) recently clinched with the Philippine government.

The 10 member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) joined by China, South Korea and Japan (Asean Plus Three) have agreed to further strengthen the multilateral currency swap arrangement to enable members overcome crisis more speedily and promote sustained economic growth.