Smart Comunications has just launched its international e-loading in Guam and is planning to offer similar services in Taiwan, the US mainland, and certain countries in the Middle East and Europe with large concentrations of Overseas Filipino Workers. Smart partnered with Hafatel in Guam to enable OFWs based there to send Smart and Talk ‘n Text electronic load (e-Load) to the Philippines. "This is the first of a series of international e-Loading partnership projects," Roger Quevedo, Head of the Wholesale Business Group of Smart Communications, Inc. announced yesterday. "With its successful pilot launching, Smart international e-loading service will soon become available in other countries worldwide," he confirmed. "We are looking at launching similar service in Taiwan, the US mainland, and certain countries in the Middle East and Europe where there is high concentration of overseas Filipinos." Smart e-load is now available at all Hafatel Exchanges around the island in local currency equivalents of the P500, P300 and P200 denominations. (EVA)

Universal Motors Corp. is offering a partnership program called "UR VAN UR Business" that would enable start-up entrepreneurs to tap their vans for profitable business schemes. Elizabeth H. Lee, UMC senior vicepresident for marketing, said that for a downpayment of P200,000, an entrepreneur can start a shuttle business using its Urvan vehicle. Urban offers the most affordable line up of vans available locally at a cost of P1.2 million. It can accommodate between 12 to 18 passengers and based on UMC calculations, two trips daily of an Urvan shuttle bus from Alabang to Makati can already cover for the P28,000 monthly installment for a 36 month payment period. "But UMC can fashion the vehicle to fit to the kind of business chosen by the entrepreneur," Lee said. UMC has also identified different business schemes for Urvan such as shuttle bus, ambulance, fast cargo, school bus among others. The company is also tapping the local governments for the program.

Coal producer Semirara Mining Corp., in a disclosure to the stock exchange, said it purchased a total of 19.3 million shares in a buyback program that ran from Aug. 15 last year to March 12. It said from Jan. 12 to March 12 this year, it bought back 5.49 million shares for P145.7 million, but did not disclose the amount paid for the rest. The buyback program, which was originally intended to end on Jan. 11, was extended to March 12.

Zamboanga City is fast losing its title as the seaweed capital of the Philippines. The strengthening peso has pulled down the price of dried seaweed to a range between P14 and P16 a kilo, making cultivation unprofitable. This was a drastic dive from a range of P18 to P20 a kilo last year, sending thousands of farmers to stop raising the weed. Alfredo Sarte, president of Philippine Exporters Confederation, Inc. (PHILEXPORT) chapter in region IX said that the seaweed industry needs rehabilitation if the Philippines wants to keep its being the top producer of carraggeenan and other seaweed based products in the world. Depressed prices have discouraged farmers from engaging in seaweed farming. Traders who got their purchase orders abroad at an exchange rate of P55 to the dollar, have been passing on their losses to the seaweed farmers when the peso steadily appreciated since last January, said Sarte. The farmers ended up absorbing the losses, he added. They are going back to fishing and processing dried fish because of the price crisis in seaweed products. Sarte revealed that sea farmers in Indonesia are fast overtaking those in Mindanao in producing seaweed for export because of the full support given them by their government. (EHL)

The Securities and Exchange Commission is forming a task force with the Bureau of Internal Revenue to investigate non-stock, non-profit organizations following complaints that some employ unauthorized quasi-investment schemes. SEC compliance and enforcement director Hubert Guevarra said the SEC has actually started a nationwide probe of at least 13 non-profit organizations that have been the subject of complaints. He said some of these organizations are big. "We are checking if these firms registered as non-profit organizations are actually vehicles for investment scams," he said explaining that some of the groups promise their members economic benefits in exchange for a certain membership fee which are similar to pyramiding scams. Guevarra noted that some of these non-stock firms are disguised as charitable organizations but have not been reporting their finances and activities to the SEC as required by law. "We want to ensure that the hapless public will not be lured into another investment scam," he said. The SEC had teamed up with other government agencies in the past to crack down on pyramiding scams disguised as multilevel marketing firms. Guevarra said they are teaming up with the Bureau of Internal Revenue this time since these supposed non-profit organizations will have tax liabilities if they are actually engaged in investment or profit-oriented activities. (JAL)