The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business

Popular Filipino rock band Aegis and the Philippine Phil­harmonic Orchestra (PPO) will perform together for the first time in a concert, titled Aegis in Symphony, Symphonic Aegis, at the Tanghalang Ni­canor Abelardo (Main The­ater) of the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) on November 13 at 6 p.m.

The angelic sounds of the Christ­mas season are coming earlier than usual this year when the world-famous Vienna Boys Choir performs in a one-night-only con­cert, titled The Vienna Boys Choir Live in Manila, at the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC) Plenary Hall in Pasay City on November 11 at 8 p.m.

Imagine waking up to a beautiful, sunny day. It’s perfect for a run. You take a quick shower, put on your running clothes and shoes, tie your shoelaces, and leave home.

The Czech, Hungarian and Pol­ish ambassadors to the Philip­pines jointly held a half-day-long, tourism-oriented event in Makati City on October 28 that not only promoted the top tourist desti­nations in countries that form the Central European region, but also highlighted the growing popularity of these destinations with Filipino tourists.

By Luis Leoncio Leakages from tax perks giv­en to corporations average P100 billion annually, com­pared to only P5 billion in revenues lost through inefficient collections from exemptions of se­nior citizens based, according to computations of the Department of Finance (DOF) in its studies on ways to plug loopholes in the tax system.

Local business and government executives urged China to do more in terms of im­proving economic ties with the Philippines after President Duterte’s state visit to the Asian giant.

By Riza Lozada Japan’s giant trading hous­es or sogo shoshas are again investing big in the Philippines in response to the invitation of President Duterte during his recent three-day official visit to Ja­pan.

The country’s biggest corporations and state-owned firms can now choose where to buy their electricity after the Supreme Court (SC) junked the petition of the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) against the implementation of the retail competition and open access (RCOA), a provision of the Electricity Power Industry Reform Act (Epira).

By Luis Leoncio If the economic managers who are under the Nation­al Economic and Devel­opment Authority (Neda) board would have their way, the P125-a-day across-the-board wage increase being sought in Congress is out of the question this year, and perhaps in the years to come.

A think tank has questioned the meth­odology of the Philippine Statistics Au­thority (PSA), which reported last week that the country’s poverty rate declined to 21.6 percent in 2015 compared to 25.2 percent in 2012.