BoI okays smoked fish project

The Board of Investments has approved on non-pioneer status the project of General Katsuobushi International Corp. for its smoked fish processing project in Tambler, General Santos City. With a project cost of P10 million, the company would process 800 metric ton per year of fish for the exports market. It was granted four years of income tax holiday incentives. The firm is a 98 percent Taiwanese-owned and is expected to generate 60 job opportunities. The proposed product is called "katsuo-bushi," a smoked fish that is used as food ingredients.

Film, TV academy given perks

The International Academy for Film & Television Inc. was granted non-pioneer incentives by the Board of Investments for its ICT support services project at a total cost of P62.462 million. The company would offer courses on 2D animation, 3D Animation, digital editing, web designing, adobe photoshop CS, compositing with after effects-adobe 6.0, and audio production. The project would be funded through equity of P30 million and loan of P32.462 million.

Thrifts’ NPLs up at 9.18%

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said the non-performing loans ratio of the thrift banking sector was "slightly" higher at 9.18 percent in October from 9.09 percent the previous month. The BSP said this is because of the 1.3 percent increase in the total NPLs for the current month tally. Total loan portfolio, in the meantime increased 0.3 percent for the period. The BSP website did not produce the October table for the TLP. NPL ratio, exclusive of interbank loans, is contained at 9.59 percent. This is almost equal to the 9.58 percent ratio in September 2005 and is considerably lower than the 11.23 percent ratio a year ago. The BSP also reported that the sector’s loan restructuring have increased by 0.9 percent to P4.61 billion. On the other hand the disposal of acquired assets "albeit slow is continues," officials said. Real and other properties owned or acquired declined by 1.7 percent. ROPOAS’ share to gross assets subsequently improved 9.84 percent from 10.04 percent the previous month.

ADB boosts lending to India

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) said that it would increase its lending to India to .65 billion in 2008 from .12 billion this year. "The program reflects the continuing priority of upgrading infrastructure... and gives emphasis to agriculture and rural development to create jobs and make the country’s growth more broad based," said ADB country director to India, Tadashi Kondo. As part of this loan program, the ADB will "continue to focus its development efforts on relatively weak states such as Chhat-tisgarh, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttaranchal, and those in the northeast," the bank said in a statement from its headquarters in the Philippine capital. The multilateral institution said that India was expected to maintain its annual growth of almost 7 percent over the next two years "but achieving the government’s target of eight percent growth depends critically on upgrading infrastructure as well improving agricultural growth." In September, the ADB said it was ready to raise its lending to India to more than .5 billion over the next three years.

ADB okays -M Jakarta loan

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) said that it was extending a -million loan to Indonesia to support a rural infrastructure program in the eastern part of that country. The three-year project will be part of the government’s program to compensate for the reduction in fuel subsidies, the ADB said in a statement from its headquarters in the Philippine capital. It will involve the rehabilitation and improvement of infrastructure in about 1,800 poor and isolated villages in East Java, Nusa Tenggara East, Southeast Sulawesi and South Sulawesi provinces, the ADB said. The loan will finance the construction and repair of village roads, bridges and culverts, irrigation systems, water supplies and sanitation, and drainage works. Some two million rural poor will be helped by the project, the ADB added.

NFA tariff exemption sought

Farmer organizations are asking the government to exempt the National Food Authority (NFA) from paying tariff duties on imported rice to boost the country’s food security. In a resolution sent to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, the farmers are requesting that NFA should be made the sole importer of rice and should stop paying tariffs which is causing so much financial woes to the food agency. The farmers’ organizations, which include the Grains Retailers Association (GRECON) and Provincial Farmers Action Council (PFAC) nationwide argued that the NFA will better perform its functions if it is afforded with enough budgetary allocation.