The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business

The Australia-New Zealand Chamber of Commerce (ANZCHAM) and the Joint Foreign Chambers have urged the Duterte administration to complete major infrastructure projects that would help solve traffic congestion. With more than 24 million people, Metro Manila is the fourth-largest urban area in the world, and its physical structures can barely cope. The business groups called for the completion of major …

Vice President Robredo recently emphasized the importance of secondary cities as vital contributors to national wealth and productivity. 

The Home Development Mutual Fund, also known as Pag-IBIG Fund, collected P9.1 billion from housing loan amortizations during the first quarter of 2016, an increase of 5-percent or about P400 Million from the amount collected in same period in 2015, it was learned recently. 

By Alvin I. Dacanay  Last Wednesday, award-winning actress and singer Agot Isidro marked another personal milestone—her 50th birthday—not by throwing a grand and celebrity-studded party, but by having a quiet breakfast with her family at a low-key restaurant in Marikina City, where she grew up. 

The Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) is set to hold Winds and Jazz: The CCP International Band Festival at the CCP Main and Little Theaters, Silangan Hall, and Harbour Square from July 26 to 31.

An awareness of allergies is the first way to defeat them and to stop them from limiting what you can do. Keeping this in mind, antihistamine medicine Claritin held what it called the #ClaritinAllergy101 Session with television personality and Claritin Ambassador Iya Villania-Arellano at Cafe Naya at The Palace, Bonifacio Global City, Taguig City, on July 13.

Makati Shangri-La, Metro Manila’s premiere luxury hotel, invites guests, including families and business travelers, to enjoy a tropical retreat in the heart of the city, even in the middle of the rainy season, with “The Grand Getaway: La Filipiniana” vacation package, which will last until next month. 

By Luis Leoncio  The Duterte administration must take prompt and decisive steps to raise agricultural productivity if it is to make a dent on the 25-percent poverty rate that the previous administration failed to address, despite its claims of the country’s steady economic growth, according to an agricultural expert.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has endorsed the initial fiscal policy actions of the Duterte administration, primarily the proposed increase in government spending that would raise the closely watched shortfall in the budget.

Telecommunications giant Globe Telecom has denied allegations it was blocking the Philippine Competition Commission (PCC) from exercising its mandate by seeking a court order to prevent the antitrust body from reviewing the P70-billion sale of San Miguel Corp. (SMC) unit Vega Telecom to Globe and Philippine Long Distance Telephone (PLDT) Inc.