Palawan makes Lonely Planet’s top-10 list of places to visit in Asia-Pacific in 2019

MANILA—Palawan has made Lonely Planet's list of best places to visit in Asia-Pacific this year. 

Dramatic seascapes, wildlife-laden jungles, and El Nido's skyscraping rock formations were cited as the main reasons the island was chosen among the top spots in the region in the guidebook publisher's list.

Lonely Planet wrote about the country's last frontier, saying: "Palawan has ridden a slew of media accolades to the cusp of international superstardom. Fortunately, it’s not there yet." 

"These are the heady days when new air routes and upgraded roads make it easier than ever to explore the dramatic seascapes and wildlife-laden jungles of the slender 400 km-long main island (also called Palawan) before it inevitably becomes more developed.

"The crown jewel is El Nido, where skyscraping karst formations rise out of blue water in Bacuit Bay. 

"New rules restrict visitor numbers at signature sights like Big Lagoon on Miniloc Island, while a ban on single-use plastic bottles on tour boats is helping to tackle marine pollution." 

Palawan placed No. 8 on the list, just above Cambodia and Shanghai and behind Fiji. 

Taking the top spot is Australia's Margaret River. 

Japan's Shikoku island and New Zealand's Bay of Islands placed second and third, respectively. 

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Asia-Pacific nations sign sweeping trade deal without US

SANTIAGO, Chile - Eleven countries including Japan and Canada signed a landmark Asia-Pacific trade agreement without the United States on Thursday in what one minister called a powerful signal against protectionism and trade wars.

The deal came as US President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, a move that other nations and the International Monetary Fund said could start a global trade war.

The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) will reduce tariffs in countries that together amount to more than 13 percent of the global economy - a total of $10 trillion in gross domestic product. With the United States, it would have represented 40 percent.

"Today, we can proudly conclude this process, sending a strong message to the international community that open markets, economic integration and international cooperation are the best tools for creating economic opportunities and prosperity," said Chilean President Michelle Bachelet.

Heraldo Munoz, Chile's minister of foreign affairs, said he expected Chile's trade with China, its top trading partner, to continue growing alongside trade with CPTPP countries.

Even without the United States, the deal will span a market of nearly 500 million people, making it one of the world's largest trade agreements, according to Chilean and Canadian trade statistics.

The original 12-member agreement, known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), was thrown into limbo early last year when Trump withdrew from the deal three days after his inauguration. He said the move was aimed at protecting US jobs.

The 11 remaining nations finalized a revised trade pact in January. That agreement will become effective when at least six member nations have completed domestic procedures to ratify it, possibly before the end of the year.

"We are very hopeful like others that we will see the CP TPP coming into effect about the end of the year or shortly thereafter," said Australia Trade Minister Steven Ciobo.

'THE WAY FORWARD'

The revised agreement eliminates some requirements of the original TPP demanded by US negotiators, including rules to ramp up intellectual property protection of pharmaceuticals. Governments and activists of other member nations worry the changes will raise the costs of medicine.

The final version of the agreement was released in New Zealand on Feb. 21. The member countries are Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.

"We're proud ... to show the world that progressive trade is the way forward, that fair, balanced, and principled trade is the way forward, and that putting citizens first is the way forward for the world when it comes to trade," Canadian Trade Minister Francois-Phillippe Champagne said.

In January, Trump, who also has threatened to pull the United States out of the North American Free Trade Agreement, told the World Economic Forum in Switzerland that it was possible Washington might return to the TPP pact if it got a better deal. However, New Zealand's trade minister said that was unlikely in the near term, while Japan has said altering the agreement now would be very difficult.

On Thursday, Munoz said CPTPP was not an agreement against anyone and several governments had said they want to join it.

Trump on Thursday imposed a 25 percent tariff on steel imports and 10 percent tariff on aluminum imports, although he said there would be exemptions for NAFTA partners Mexico and Canada.

He announced the plan for tariffs last week, rattling financial markets.

Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo, in Santiago for the CPTPP signing, told Reuters he would not allow the United States to use the tariffs to pressure it in the NAFTA talks. Champagne told Reuters that Canada would not accept duties or quotas from the United States.

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PH gets $500-M World Bank credit line to reduce disaster risk

MANILA - The Philippines has secured a $500 million credit line from the World Bank to support efforts to manage risks posed by natural disasters.

The Southeast Asian country can get access to the credit line if its president declares a state of calamity, the bank said in a statement.

It is the second such financing option the bank has provided the Philippines, which is the first country in the Asia-Pacific region to use such a credit line.

"If not managed well, disasters can roll back years of development gains and plunge millions of people into poverty," World Bank Country Director Motoo Konishi said.

The Philippines is frequently hit by natural disasters such as typhoons, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, with on average more than 1,000 people killed every year, most of them by the 20 or more typhoons that hit annually.

In 2013, typhoon Haiyan killed more than 6,300 people and left 1.4 million homeless in the central Philippines.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

How Lazada is building strong presence in internet retailing

Internet retailing in the Asia-Pacific has grown to a $285 billion dollar industry, according to the latest figures from market researcher Euromonitor.

Disposable incomes in the ASEAN are growing by leaps and bounds, but many consumers are located too far out from the city where there is a dearth of reliable delivery services.

One company that has managed to work around these challenges is e-commerce firm Lazada, which started out as an online electronics store and has since grown into Southeast Asia's number one online shopping and selling destination.

Maximillian Bittner, chief executive of the Lazada Group, expects robust online sales in the Philippines along with Thailand and Indonesia in Southeast Asia. -- ANC Market Edge, December 16, 2015

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Asian stocks set to end week on high note, outlook wary

HONG KONG/TOKYO - Asian stocks edged up on Friday and looked likely to end the week with tiny gains, although the outlook remained grim as investors continued dumping emerging market assets as their growth expectations faded. The dollar crept higher.

While Thursday's private and official surveys of China's factory sector weren't quite as bad as some had feared, a number pointed out the broader economic outlook for the region remained bleak.

"The difference between new orders and inventories is a

good leading indicator for industrial production in Asia," said Frederic Neumann, co-head of Asian economics research at HSBC in Hong Kong. "Unfortunately, this signals a further deceleration of activity into the year-end."

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.3 percent, and was on track for a weekly gain of 1.2 percent. It posted its poorest quarterly performance with a decline of 17 percent, the worst since 2011.

Hong Kong's shares led gainer markets with the index rising 2.1 percent in opening trades. Japan's Nikkei Average fell 0.6 percent. China's markets will be closed until Oct. 8 for the National Golden Week holidays.

In line with falling economic activity, earnings growth expectations for the remainder of the year for MSCI Asia-ex Japan have been slashed to their lowest levels this year, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Net non-resident portfolio flows to emerging markets were negative for the third consecutive month in September, with investors estimated to have pulled out $40 billion worth of funds in the third quarter, making it the worst since December 2008, according to the Institute of International Finance.

Nowhere was this flight from emerging market assets more evident than in the bond markets with a spread measuring the gap between U.S. high yield and investment grade debt at its highest level in more than three years at 430 basis points, according to Thomson Reuters data.

In foreign exchange markets, the dollar is holding its own against other currencies before a key U.S. jobs report that could determine the chances of the Federal Reserve raising interest rates before year-end.

Economists expect U.S. nonfarm payrolls, due later in the global day, to show that employers added 203,000 jobs in September, according to a Reuters poll.

"Fed Chair Yellen has already mentioned that labor conditions are improving and hinted that developments overseas, notably in China, and prices, were chief concerns," said Shinichiro Kadota, chief Japan FX strategist at Barclays in Tokyo.

"A very bullish report would of course have a big impact. But the Fed may not make its rates decision on employment data alone," he said.

The dollar was buying 119.96 yen, broadly flat from late U.S. trading, while the euro was steady at $1.1180.

The dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of six rival currencies, was down about 0.1 percent at 96.080.

U.S. crude futures were up about 1.3 percent at $45.32 a barrel, after a choppy session in which traders monitored the unpredictable path of storm Joaquin, and whether it would strike the New Jersey coast and possibly disrupt refineries there.

Brent crude was up about 1 percent in Asian trading at $48.15 a barrel. A 19-commodity Thomson Reuters/Core Commodity CRB Index .TRJCRB held at one-week lows.

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Asia extends losses as China woes spread, yen shoots up

TOKYO - Asian equities extended losses on Thursday as concerns over China's market turmoil spread, while the safe-haven yen shot to a seven-week high as global risk appetite ebbed.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan shed 0.2 percent, hovering near a 17-month low struck the previous day.

Japan's Nikkei dropped 1.8 percent, Australian shares lost 0.3 percent and South Korea's Kospi fell 0.9 percent.

The focus in Asia again turned towards how Chinese stocks would fare later in the session, with a series of increasingly aggressive attempts by authorities so far having failed to stem the massive exodus from a once booming market.

The country's stock markets have plunged nearly 30 percent over the last three weeks.

"Fundamentally, China is coming back to a point of attraction –the monstrous P/E ratios have come back to more realistic levels. However, the bursting bubble means value is unlikely to factor into thinking in the interim. The repercussions haven't completely played out yet," Evan Lucas, market strategist at IG in Melbourne, wrote.

China's securities regulator took the drastic step late on Wednesday of ordering shareholders with stakes of more than 5 percent from selling shares for the next six months in a bid to halt a plunge in stock prices.

U.S. shares slid sharply overnight on growing fears that nose-diving Chinese shares could destabilize the world's second- largest economy and have global implications.

The doom-and-gloom mood - already heightened earlier in the month by prospects of Greece leaving the euro - benefited the yen, often sought in times of economic uncertainty.

The dollar stood little changed at 120.815 yen, within reach of a seven-week low of 120.41 touched overnight when it suffered a bruising 1.5 percent fall.

The greenback was weighed down further as U.S. Treasury yields continued falling on flight-to-safety bids and new signs that the Federal Reserve may be hesitant about raising interest rates, as shown by their policy meeting minutes.

The dollar's tumble against the yen helped the euro, which climbed to $1.1075, pulling further away from a one-month trough of $1.0916 plumbed on Tuesday.

Commodities, far from immune to the slide in global equities, remained subdued. U.S. crude CLc1 nudged up 0.4 percent to $51.86 early on Thursday but has shed nearly nine percent so far this week.

Copper received a reprieve overnight thanks to the dollar's plunge, but the metal still remained within reach of a six-year low. Copper on the London Metal Exchange was down 0.4 percent at $5,495 a tonne after hitting the six-year trough of $5,240 a tonne on Wednesday.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com