Investment rating for the Philippines in Q1 2013, Strong Economy, HK tourist Influx up inspite of ban

 

There are two good reasons why the Philippines will likely get an investment grade credit rating in early 2013, a monetary official said

 

The Philippines may get an investment grade by early 2013, according to projection by.

 

One is the country's sound macroeconomic fundamentals and positive perception by the international capital market, economist and Monetary Board member Felipe Medalla told a convention of Thrift banks, where he was the keynote speaker.

 

"We should be getting an investment grade, hopefully early next year," Medalla said.

 

The other reason is interest rates.

 

Philippine bonds carry lower yields than bonds of peers with similar credit ratings, an indication that credit rating agencies are behind the international capital markets in assessing the country's creditworthiness, Medalla said.

 

Philippine foreign exchange reserves reached a record of over $80 million as of end-August, the economist noted, saying that level of reserves gives Bangko Sentral the flexibility to cushion the impact of capital flight by foreign investors fleeing from emerging markets.

 

Bangko Sentral could also used its reserves to shield the peso from sharp declines, thus keeping the foreign exchange stable if need be. "The Philippines is practically invulnerable to capital flow reversals," Medalla said.

 

Moody's Investor Service has given the Philippines a credit rating of two notches below investment grade, while Fitch Ratings and Standard & Poor's assessed the country's creditworthiness just a notch under investment grade

 

Philippines Economy 2012 Remains Strong

 

International credit watcher Standard & Poor's raised its growth forecast for the Philippines for 2012, even as it downgraded its outlook for other economies in Asia and the Pacific, saying the country has the capability to withstand unfavorable developments in the global economy.

 

In its latest report titled "Asia Pacific Feels the Pressure of Ongoing Global Economic Uncertainty," S&P said it now expected the Philippine economy to expand by 4.9 percent, instead of the earlier projection of 4.3 percent, this year.

 

On the contrary, the credit-rating firm lowered its growth projections for several economies and kept its previous forecasts for a few others in the region to take into account the impact of the prolonged debt crisis in the eurozone, the still lackluster growth of the United States and the slowdown of China and India.

 

S&P said the unfavorable developments in the world's biggest economies were expected to dampen growth of many Asia-Pacific countries, except for the Philippines.

  

More HongKongers Tourists Arrive Visayas  for Travel Restriction in Manila

 

In spite of the updated black travel advisory of the Hong Kong Security Bureau on the Philippines, an official from the Department of Tourism (DoT) yesterday said that the tourism industry has already bounced back from the restriction and expects an even bigger growth rate from the Hong Kong market by the end of the year.

 

"We are happy to report that visitor arrivals from Hong Kong from January to July, 2012, reached 67,844 representing a growth rate of 1.71 percent," said Assistant Secretary for International Promotions Benito Bengzon Jr.

 

According to Bengzon, the alert issued two years ago is still in place but the DoT continues with its marketing and promotions program for the Hong Kong outbound travel market.

 

The Hong Kong Special Administration Region's black travel advisory is a warning to its citizens to avoid all travel to a country placed under the category.

 

The Hong Kong Security Bureau updated its black travel advisory to the Philippines underlining the risk of possible terrorist attacks.

 

"Serious hostage-taking incident happened in Manila on August 23, 2010. Residents should avoid all travel to the country; those who are already there should attend to personal safety and exercise caution," the advisory said.

 

The black travel advisory was issued after the August 23 hostage-taking incident in front of the Quirino Grandstand where a dismissed police officer hijacked a bus full of Hong Kong tourists.

 

Live Trading News, GMA News, Manila Bulletin 

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Japan-China Island War Begins! China Deploy drone to Korea, rope-off and blocked Filipino entry to Scarborough Shoal –Philippines (Updated: As of Sept. 25, 2012)

A Japanese patrol boat, left bottom, fires water cannon during a clash with Taiwanese fishing boats near disputed islands in the East China Sea. Picture: AP Source: AP 

COASTGUARD vessels from Japan and Republic of China (ROC) Taiwan dueled with water cannon today after dozens of Taiwanese boats escorted by patrol ships sailed into waters around Tokyo-controlled islands.

 

Japanese coastguard ships sprayed water at the fishing vessels, footage on national broadcaster NHK showed, with the Taiwanese patrol boats retaliating by directing their own high-pressure hoses at the Japanese ships.

 

The large-scale breach of what Japan considers sovereign territory - one of the biggest since WWII - is the latest escalation in a row over ownership of the islands that pits Tokyo against Beijing and Taipei.

 

The intrusion complicates the already volatile territorial dispute with China. Taiwan has said that officers aboard some of the patrol ships sent to the area are fully-armed elite coastguard personnel.

 

Japanese and Taiwanese coast guard patrol boats shadow each other during an ocean standoff over disputed islands in the East China Sea. Picture: AFP Source: AFP

Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura told a press conference that by 9am local time, eight Taiwanese coastguard and 40 fishing boats were in Japanese waters.

 

"We have made contact with the Taiwan authorities, and told them that they cannot enter our territorial waters," he said.

 

A spokesman for Taiwan's coastguard confirmed that nearly 60 boats got close to the islands, some coming within three nautical miles - well inside the 12-nautical-mile territorial exclusion zone.

 

Japan's coastguard said all vessels left territorial waters a few hours later.

 

The boats are part of a fleet that left Taiwan yesterday, vowing to stake their claim to islands where they say they have ancestral fishing rights.

 

More than 60 fishing boats flying Taiwan flags yesterday left Suao, a port in northeast Taiwan, with 300 fishermen and 60 reporters on board.

 

Taiwan's coastguard sent at least 10 patrol boats alongside the vessels.

 

"We'll do everything to protect our fishermen. We do not rule out using force to fight back if Japan were to do so," Wang Chin-wang, head of the Coast Guard Administration, said in parliament.

 

Japan administers the uninhabited, but strategically well-positioned archipelago under the name Senkaku. Beijing says it has owned the islands for centuries and calls them Diaoyu.

 

Taiwan also claims the islands, which lie around 200 kilometres from its coast.

 

Ownership of the islands has become an important tenet of identity for all three claimants; the possible presence of energy reserves in the nearby seabed adds to the mix.

 

The last large intrusion into Japanese waters was in 1996, according to a spokesman at the Tokyo headquarters of the Japan Coast Guard.

 

He said at that time 41 ships carrying activists from Hong Kong and Taiwan entered waters around the islands with the intention of asserting sovereignty.

 

Chen Chun-sheng, the head of the Suao Fishermen Association, said at the weekend: "Diaoyutai has been our traditional fishing ground for centuries. We pledge to use our lives to protect it or we'd disgrace our ancestors."

 

Fujimura said Japan was handling today's situation as delicately as it could.

 

"All in all, we must continue to take utmost caution for policing of the areas surrounding the Senkaku islands. Agencies concerned must continue to closely coordinate their actions," he said.

 

"Japan's position is that, in light of good Japan-Taiwan relations, we must solve the issue peacefully. We wish to respond calmly."

 

Relations between Japan and China, meanwhile, have scraped long-unseen lows in recent weeks following Tokyo's nationalization of three of the islands, which it bought from a private Japanese landowner.

 

Several days of sometimes violent protests erupted in cities across China, where Japanese businesses were targeted by rioters.

 

Japan's coastguard said yesterday that of two of China's maritime surveillance ships had spent seven hours in territorial waters around Uotsurijima, the largest island in the chain.

 

Two fisheries patrol boats briefly also entered the 12-nautical-mile zone around the chain, the coastguard said.

 

Four marine surveillance ships and two fisheries patrol boats were in contiguous waters as of today, according to the coastguard.

 

None of the Chinese ships sent to the area belongs to the military. Both types of vessel are government-owned and used to enforce Chinese law in domestic waters.

 

China to Deploy Drones to Monitor Ieo Island, Korea's Ieo-Do

 

China is claiming once again that the submerged rocks of Ieo Island are part of its own territory and included them among places to be monitored by aerial drones. The move came six months after Liu Xigui, the director of China's State Oceanic Administration, said Beijing would now regularly patrol Chinese waters using both ships and surveillance aircraft.

 

China's State Oceanic Administration held a ceremony demonstrating the drones in Jiangsu Province on Sunday and said it would bolster control over its waters by using them, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported Monday.

 

China also reiterated its claim to the Diaoyu or Senkaku Islands, which are administered by Japan, the Paracel Islands, Macclesfield Bank, and the Spratly Islands and Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea.

 

Yu Qingsong, an official with the oceanic agency, said Beijing will set up a "comprehensive maritime control system" this year under a nine-year plan aimed at bolstering its maritime presence. China plans to build remote-controlled surveillance stations in coastal provinces by 2015 and expand drone patrols in Chinese waters.

 

Ieo Island is located in an area where the exclusive economic zones of Korea and China overlap but lies much closer to the Korean Peninsula, 149 km southwest of Korea's southernmost island of Mara.

 

The nearest Chinese island to Ieo Island is Tongdao off the coast of Jiangsu province, 245 km away. According to international practice, the mid-point of overlapping EEZs is chosen as a reference point, which means Ieo Island sits within Korea's zone. But China claims that the island falls under its jurisdiction since the length of its coastline and other factors would push its EEZ further east toward Korea.

 

China controlled Panatag Shoal of the Philippines guarding passage blocking Filipino entry to the Shoal

 

Panatag Shoal in the West Philippine Sea remains roped off, with three Chinese vessels guarding it to keep Filipino fishermen out, a Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) official said Wednesday.

 

The official, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the matter, said the latest reconnaissance report showed that there were two Chinese maritime vessels and one fisheries ship at the shoal.

 

The rope that the Chinese strung across the mouth of the shoal's lagoon after a face-off between Chinese and Philippine vessels ended in mid-June to prevent Filipino fishermen from going there has not been removed, the official said.

 

The latest reconnaissance flight to Panatag Shoal was made "one to two weeks ago," he said.

 

"[The Chinese vessels] are still there, but there are no more [Chinese] fishermen," the official said.

 

Stormy weather

 

The Chinese fishermen must have moved to other fishing grounds because the weather around Panatag Shoal remained stormy, he said.

 

But the Chinese vessels are also discouraging Filipino fishermen from going into the shoal, the official said.

 

"We have a report that they were told to leave. But even before, that's what [the Chinese] were doing," the official said.

 

"[But] it's no longer [safe] to fish there. The weather is stormy so it's no longer practical to go there. Only a few fish there," he added.

 

The official said the government would file a diplomatic protest if the Chinese detained Filipino fishermen.

 

AFP, Australian News, Chuson Ilbo & Inquirer

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