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By Luis Leoncio  State gaming firm Philippine Amusement Gaming Corp. (Pagcor) will start issuing new licenses for online gaming firms provided the client would be “non-locals,” in response to President Duterte’s sudden turnaround on online gambling. 

By Riza Lozada  Business outlook on the economy turned slightly less optimistic for the third quarter, with the overall confidence index (CI) declining to 45.4 percent compared to 48.7 percent in the previous quarter, partly as a result of rigid measures that the new administration implemented on the mining industry, the Business Expectation Survey of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas …

The strong 7-percent economic growth in the second quarter revealed several kinks in the economy, including a possibly slowing pace of progress, official data showed and which President Duterte’s officials admitted, saying major changes were, indeed, needed to fix the huge wealth gap.

By Riza Lozada Tourism is expected to have a renaissance under President Duterte with his administration’s focus on restoring public order throughout the country to support the target of drawing more than 12 million tourist arrivals by 2022, which is more than double the number of tourist arrivals in 2015, based on the National Tourism Development Plan (NTDP) 2016-2022.

The impending exit of Great Britain from the European Union is affecting Asian financial markets but the possibility of a Donald Trump presidency in the United States could escalate the economic risks in the region to a whole new level, a Japan analysis firm’s report said.

By Luis Leoncio With the public hearings in Congress on the proposed 2017 national budget to start this week, a budget watchdog has urged the Duterte administration to release the money already appropriated to provinces devastated by Supertyphoon Yolanda in 2013.

THE new administration’s economic chiefs, acknowledging that the poor continue to be left behind in the country’s march to progress, have pledged to implement policies that would finally enable the masses to benefit from the country’s growth.

By Luis Leoncio The government crackdown on giant mining companies has started, with Environment Secretary Regina Lopez initially putting  in the firing line the Tampakan gold and copper mine operated by Sagittarius Mines Inc., and the Semirara open-pit coal mine, in response to demands by various agencies.    

The Duterte administration’s efforts to end Metro Manila’s monstrous traffic problem received a huge boost after Japan approved a $2.4-billion (P112.8-billion) loan to fund the Metro Rail Transit (MRT) 7 project that will connect Manila to Bulacan and decongest the capital.  

A budget watchdog is demanding an end to the country’s automatic debt payments that give priority to debt servicing over allocations for vital social and economic services.