The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business

Four of the Philippines’ most popular bands are rocking select shopping malls in Metro Manila as the featured acts of the second edition of the Sync Sessions, which its organizer said is offering “an audio-digital crossover experience” that has musicians combining “good music and cutting-edge technology using Apple devices.”

By Thomas Adamson / The Associated Press Paris—The sky was the limit for powerhouse Christian Dior, which built an entire floral mountain within the Louvre to house its 15-minute show at Paris Fashion Week. On the front row was Rihanna, attracting almost as much attention as the decor. Here are the highlights of last Friday’s shows:

Leading logistics provider DHL and IMG announced recently that Marcel Ostertag of Germany, Sid Neigum of Canada, Atsushi Nakashima of Japan, and Portuguese-born Marta Marques of the United Kingdom are the winners of the DHL Exported Cycle Two Program.

By Luis Leoncio  The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has issued a warning on the adverse impact of the tightening of monetary policies in the United States on foreign capital in the region, including the Philippines. 

As a growing number of local and foreign business groups continued to support a congressional initiative to reduce income and corporate taxes, a former budget official blasted the arguments raised by President Aquino in opposing it. 

By Lito U. Gagni  The government needs to fine-tune the policy focus of its mass-housing program if it must address this social-reform issue that has eluded six presidents for the past 50 years, according to Januario Jesus Atencio III, president and CEO of 8990 Holdings Inc., the country’s top housing developer. 

Iloilo City, Iloilo—Ministers of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) recognized on Friday that corruption and unethical business practices hamper micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) from entering the global market. 

“Practitioners of the craft are responsible, in no small part, to the state of the Philippine society, or more accurately, to the state of the Filipino mind,” thus declared Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno when she opened the 22nd National PR Congress at the Hotel Intercontinental Manila in Makati City. 

By Riza Lozada The Philippine Exporters Confederation Inc. (Philexport) sought from the Philippine National Police (PNP) clear rules on the securing of permits for the importation and distribution of regulated chemicals. 

The Market Monitor salutes the contributions to the Philippines industrial landscape, of one of the pillars of the construction industry – the late Felipe F. Cruz Jr., who, unknown to many, subscribed to the wisdom of Abraham Lincoln.