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By Riza Lozada An influential foreign trade group said the government “must” require the use of the precious frequency band available for fast Internet transmissions and “compel” companies that have it but are not using it “to give it up.”

Business confidence is on a slide, according to a Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) quarterly survey, which showed that the overall confidence index (CI) fell to 41.9 percent in the first quarter from 51.3 percent in the final quarter of last year, partly due to uncertainties as a result of the expected change in administration after the national elections in …

Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala has come up with an agricultural initiative whose impact, four years after a touch-and-go game on the intricacies of the business, has produced what could become his legacy to the country’s efforts at financial inclusion.

By Riza Lozada Fierce telecommunications rivals Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) and Globe Telecom appear to have temporarily set aside their “differences” and joined forces to denounce the “anti-competition act” of San Miguel Corp. (SMC) in refusing to share the 700-megahertz (MHz) band needed to upgrade the country’s Internet connections.

By Luis Leoncio It will be Christmas in May for government employees, but mostly those in the top echelons, as President Aquino signed an executive order (EO) last Friday granting salary increases to 1.3 million state workers, including the Chief Executive, which would cost a total of P226 billion. The pay raises are retroactive to Jan. 1, 2016. 

Finance Secretary Cesar V. Purisima hopes to contribute to the daang matuwid (straight path) campaign for continuity by seeking a new upgrade from credit watchdogs that would bring the country to two notches above investment grade.

Tokyo—Japan’s economy contracting in the last quarter more severely than median market expectations, against a backdrop of ballooning social-welfare costs connected to an ongoing demographic crisis, has led some analysts to believe that the “Abenomics” rhetoric has run its course.

By Jerry Maglunog The government has borrowed $2 billion (P86 billion) more from the international capital market through 25-year dollar-denominated bonds, further raising the already record-high foreign debt under the Aquino administration.

President Aquino will leave his successor with P6.4 trillion in national government outstanding debt, P4.16 trillion of it in borrowings made during his term, according to the fiscal watchdog, said the Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC), a budget watchdog.

By Yoo Seungki Seoul—South Korea is divided on whether to deploy a sophisticated US missile defense system in its territory over worries about the expected escalation of regional tensions and the unproven plausibility of the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (Thaad), both militarily and environmentally.