Businessmirror april 01, 2016

media partner of the year

BusinessMirror

United nations

2015 environmental Media Award leadership award 2008

A broader look at today’s business

www.businessmirror.com.ph

n

Friday, April 1, 2016 Vol. 11 No. 174

BELMONTE SAYS AMLA REVISION HAS BETTER CHANCES NEXT ADMIN

16th Congress will not touch bank-secrecy law

T

INSIDE

he leadership of the House of Repre-sentatives on Thursday said the 16th Congress no longer has the time to pass a bill amending the country’s bank-secrecy law.

SUCCESS & POLITICS IN 2015 WITH DATO JOEY YAP The Christian moral life

D

EAR Lord, we thank You that the Christian moral life is bound up with faith and the sacraments.

What the symbol of faith professes, the sacraments communicate. Indeed, through them, the faithful receive the grace of Christ and the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which enables them to living a new life as children of God in Christ whom they have received in faith. St. Leo the Great said, “Oh Christian, recognize your dignity.” May grace fill the Christian moral life in each one of us. Amen.

CATHECHISM OF THE CATCHOLIC CHURCH AND LOUIE M. LACSON Word&Life Publications • teacherlouie1965@yahoo.com

Editor: Gerard S. Ramos • lifestylebusinessmirror@gmail.com

Life

SOMETHING LIKE LIFE: SO YOU’RE A COLLEGE GRADUATE, NOW WHAT? D4

BusinessMirror

Friday, April 1, 2016

By Jovee Marie N. Dela Cruz & David Cagahastian

D1

BY FRANCIS L. BONNEVIE

T

selling author of 162 books that have been printed in seven languages with over 4 million copies sold and counting. As the absolute authority on the matter, he tours the world annually, speaking to various personalities while being consulted by Fortune 500 companies. He is also a regular guest on Bloomberg, where he gives his annual forecasts.

His 12-city world tour, a live seminar series titled “Joey Yap’s Feng Shui & Astrology 2016,” took him recently to the Marriott Grand Ballroom of Resorts World Manila and was attended by over 500 people— including this author—who were all eager to find out what this year holds for them. I caught up with Dato Joey Yap right after his successful seminar and got some interesting insights into 2016. Here’s my quick chat with the man himself: I see you have two new books, the first one being Walking with Dragons: The Taiwan Excursion. Could you tell us more about this?

The Taiwan Excursion sprung from what happened in 2011 and 2012, when I brought a bunch of our

Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. and House Majority Leader and Liberal Party Rep. Neptali Gonzales II of Mandaluyong City made the statement after See “16th Congress,” A2

Your second book is the Chinese Art of Face Reading and the book is on how moles affect our fortune and outlook in life.

Moles don’t affect our fortune; the moles tell us something about our fortune. It’s information, it’s one of the most easiest things to see on the face—you take a look at someone’s face, and the first thing you see is where the dots are, right? So in this book there are over 300 possible locations of moles on the face and we basically label each one and say what it means. It makes it possible for people to do face reading.

CONTINUED ON D4

d1

CITY SLICKER AND MIGHTY OFF-ROADER Motoring BusinessMirror

Henry Ford Awards Best Motoring Section 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 2011 Hall of Fame

Editor: Tet Andolong

Friday, April 1, 2016

E1

BoldEr And rEFinEd

All-New Ford everest 3.2l 4X4 titANium

City sliCker ANd mighty oFF-roAder T Story & photos by Randy S. Peregrino

HE all-new Everest is the main reason Ford Philippines continues to hold a strong position in the midsize sport-utility vehicle (SUV) segment. With over 7,000 units sold since September last year, this clearly indicates the impact of the major enhancements in its overall built.

“We are truly happy that the all-new Everest remains to be one of the most sought-after SUVs in the market. The bold design, advance technology, and stunning off-road and on-road capability of the Everest, coupled with its comfortable seating for up to seven passengers, have truly redefined the midsize SUV segment,” Ford Philippines Managing Director Lance Mosley said.

The new sculpted frame is definitely a breakthrough from the manufacturer’s stellar job in coming up with a new level of styling.

Oozing from the front end is the signature inverted trapezoid chrome grill and slender headlamps fitted with auto-leveling projector-type LED and daylight-running lights and pitching that tough-looking fascia. From a typical boxy frame, it has more delineation now, particularly on the hood, to complement the bulging wheel arches and curvatures. Those equally stunning profiles at the back are accentuated by a chrome bar that connects both chiseled taillights. Additionally, this top-spec unit is tailored with metallic-painted trim underneath the bumpers for additional aesthetics. Those 20-inch multithick spokes alloys with 265/50 series tires are attractive enough to complement with the athletic stance. Also, ingress and egress are made easy with broad and chrome highlighted step board.

Step inside and be greeted with elegance coming from the finest materials installed. The well-laidout dashboard has transformed into a neat sedan-like design with clustered controls and glossy pieces. That vivid and well-illuminated instrumentation panel closely resembles the one in the Explorer model, with information

screen displaying vital data. Finding the perfect driving position is trouble-free, thanks to the eightway power-adjust seat, together with the tilt chunky steering with embedded switches. Utilizing a light color for the leather seats, sidings and panels fashioned a tidy and calming effect for this sevenseater SUV, while the dark-themed ceiling allows the panoramic glass roof to emit more brightness. Fold that third-row seats, and you have an equivalent 2,010 liters of cargo capacity, with a 750-kilogram payload at your disposal, with a power tailgate for easy access.

On the road, there was very little noise penetrating the cabin, except for the engine grunt on higher ranges with the soft and comfy ride produced by the combined front double wishbone and rear multilink suspensions. Even with lower series tires, it surprisingly produced very minimal rebounds and harshness on uneven pavements.

The cold air emitted by the dualzone air-condition further extends to the roomy rear-passenger cabin through ceiling air vents. There was even enough provision for drink holders, including the ones in the center console with rubber grip. Aside from audio playbacks and Bluetooth connectivity, the 8" TFT touch screen infotainment also provides the clear display for parking assist, with guides that follow turning directions, even while you enjoy the active parkassist hands-free.

Delivery-wise, the brute force of the 3.2-liter TDCi powertrain made the highway climb seamless, without even pushing to higher rpm range. With a staggering 470 N-m of torque available just below 2,000 rpm, even overtaking on ascents was absolutely effortless.

This made the manual mode from the coupled six-speed automatic gearbox simply essential for engine braking on downhill, but can also be employed to remain within the optimum powerband.

On tight tur ns, t he cur ve control actively demonstrated full assistance to maintain good handling and control, even on constr icted bends. Li kew ise, t he e l e c t r o n i c - p o w e r s t e e r ing assisted in the process of smo ot h m a neuve r i ng. Given that this new-generation Everest is equipped with intelligent four-wheel-drive mechanism, plus first-in class terrain management system (TMS), the jungle base in Tanay proved to be the ideal grounds to try out several offroading functions. Before proceeding, transmission was shifted on first gear on manual mode with Hill Descent Control (HDC), rear differential electronic locking and 4X4 Low engaged altogether.

Without stepping on any pedal, the HDC maintained a slow pace while tackling the unpredicted and rocky terrain, leaving only the option to upshift to increase the pace. In a sudden dive, the function remarkably applied the right amount of brakes ahead of anyone’s natural reaction and prevented the vehicle from plunging out of control. Meanwhile, deliberately stopping in an almost 45-degree incline enabled the Hill Start Assist to prevent any movement in between transition and the SUV just simply continued scrambling.

Finally, we efficiently conquered the most difficult gradient with blind spots by solely relying on hand directions, with the wheels alternately moved on and off the ground while the Torque on Demand via Active Transfer Case moderated the force distributions.

Other safety elements are seven total airbags; antilock braking system with electronic brake distribution; electronic-stability program; roll-stability control; lane-keeping system; and collision mitigation, among others.

All these cutting-edge features, first-in-class innovation, striking looks and superb driving performance clearly justify the successful sales output. And with the topof-the-line edition being priced less than the main competitors, no wonder the all-new Everest remains as one of the most soughtafter mid-size SUVs today.

ElEgAnt And stylisH tHUmBs UP n Massive engine torque in the low-end range n Intelligent drivetrain system n Advanced safety and security features n Exterior styling and interior design n Quiet and comfortable ride

MOTORING tHUmBs doWn

n No push start/stop ignition button

‘WATCH THE BALL’

E1

sPEciFicAtions

PAnorAmic glass roof is installed to allow more natural light inside the cabin.

n vehicle: Ford Everest 3.2L 4X4 Titanium AT n type: Midsize SUV n Engine: 3.2-liter Duratorq, in-line 5 cylinders, TDCi, intercooled turbodiesel n maximum power: 197 Hp at 3,000 rpm n maximum torque: 470 Nm at 1,750-2,500 rpm n transmission: Six-speed Select Shift automatic transmission with manual mode

dimEnsions n overall length: 4,893 millimeters n overall width: 1,862 mm n overall height: 1,836 mm n Wheelbase: 2,850 mm n ground clearance: 225 mm n tire size: 265/50 R20 n Price as tested: P1.899 million

UnyiElding dElivEry

SYNCHRONIZED WORK Hundreds of workers in the Clark, Pampanga, industrial park create hand-sewn stuffed toys for a multinational company. NONIE REYES

Sports BusinessMirror

C1

| Friday, april 1, 2016 mirror_sports@yahoo.com.ph sports@businessmirror.com.ph Editor: Jun Lomibao | Asst. Editor: Joel Orellana

WITH Serena Williams’s exit in the fourth round, Victoria Azarenka’s path to the finals has become less daunting. AP

‘WATCH THE BALL’

K

By Steven Wine The Asociated Press

EY BISCAYNE, Florida—Victoria Azarenka was well on her way to victory on Wednesday when she drew a code violation for chastising herself too colorfully, and she later angrily jabbed at her eyes with two fingers as if to say, “Watch the ball.”

Azarenka sets high standards for herself, which is one reason she is undefeated in March.

The two-time Grand Slam champion moved one win closer to a rare Indian Wells-Key Biscayne double by beating Johanna Konta in the quarterfinals of the Miami Open, 6-4, 6-2.

Top-ranked Novak Djokovic overcame back spasms to defeat No. 7-seeded Tomas Berdych, 6-3, 6-3.

Afterward Djokovic said he’s not concerned about his back going into Friday’s semifinal against No. 15-seeded David Goffin, who became the first Belgian ever to reach the men’s semifinals at Key Biscayne by rallying past No. 18 Gilles Simon, 3-6, 6-2, 6-1.

Eight-time women’s champion Serena Williams was eliminated in the fourth round, making Azarenka’s path less daunting. Her opponent on Thursday night will be No. 2-seeded Angelique Kerber, who beat No. 22 Madison Keys, 6-3, 6-2.

Keys, who committed 39 unforced errors, was the last American in either draw.

No. 15 Svetlana Kuznetsova, who ousted

Williams, will play No. 19 Timea Bacsinszky in the other semifinal.

Azarenka, seeded 13th, beat Williams in the Indian Wells final less than two weeks ago and is 20-1 this year.

She is trying to become the third woman to win Indian Wells and Key Biscayne in the same year, a feat achieved only by Steffi Graf and Kim Clijsters.

“If I’m able to make it, it’s great,” Azarenka said. “It seems so close, but it’s really far. I want to stay in the present. I want to continue to fight and keep getting better.”

Azarenka won Key Biscayne in 2009 and 2011. A former No. 1 player, she fell out of the top 30 in 2014 because of foot and thigh

injuries, but will be back in the top 5 next week.

“I never doubted my abilities,” she said. “The doubt was to get healthy again. I still feel I’m far from my best, and that’s really exciting for me.”

Against the No. 24-seeded Konta, Azarenka wasn’t always pleased with her play. The code violation came when she lost the first game of the second set.

“Sometimes I cuss, and that’s OK,” she said. “Whatever will make me play better, I’m going to do. I was just trying to push myself.”

Azarenka never lost serve and committed just 14 unforced errors in 119 points. Her deep, steady groundstrokes gradually broke down Konta’s baseline game, and the Brit double-faulted three times on break point.

BUSTED! N

EWPORT, Kentucky—Larisa Mikhaylova’s business model is simple: In exchange for a cut of their prizes, she enters Kenyan runners into far-flung US road races that are small enough to be winnable but still large enough to offer modest cash rewards to top finishers.

Those smaller races usually can’t afford expensive drug-testing.

An investigation by US anti-doping officials and track’s world governing body into distance runners from Kenya has now zeroed in on the Russian agent, whose racers have had a remarkable success rate but also a string of positive drug tests, nearly all at races in Mexico. Mikhaylova insists she is blameless, but some US races are refusing to work with her group of athletes.

When Kenyan runner Lilian Mariita finished second at the Great Buffalo Chase 5K on July 4, 2015, in Frankfort, Kentucky, she picked up $2,500. But her whole way of life—competing in small races across the US, and sending winnings home to her poor village in western Kenya—crumbled.

Normally, the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) would have no reason to police the race. This time, acting on a tip, drug testers were waiting, and steroids were found in Mariita’s urine sample. The 27-year-old was banned for eight years, the longest of any Kenyan runner, and is now back in her village of Nyaramba.

“I used to rely on this for money and I don’t know what is left for me,” Mariita said, sobbing in the modest home built with her US winnings.

Track’s world governing body, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), says it is investigating Mikhaylova and the runners she manages.

Djokovic moved a step closer to his sixth Key Biscayne men’s title, which would tie Andre Agassi’s record, and his third in a row. He improved to 20-0 on hard courts against Berdych, but not without a strain—he tweaked his back and received treatment from a trainer five games into the second set.

Djokovic blamed a swirling wind. Despite the tricky conditions he finished with only eight unforced errors to 35 for Berdych.

“This was overall from the first to the last point the best match I’ve played of the tournament,” he said, “and it comes at the right stage of the event.”

Djokovic improved to 26-1 this year and said he feels better about his game than at the same stage in 2015—a year in which he won three Grand Slam titles.

KENYAN Lilian Mariita wins the women’s division of a half-marathon in Richmond, Virginia, in November 2014. AP

An investigation by US anti-doping officials and track’s world governing body into distance runners from Kenya has now zeroed in on the Russian agent, whose racers have had a remarkable success rate but also a string of positive drug tests, nearly all at races in Mexico.

“We are working with USADA on her, and that group in particular,” said Kyle Barber, the IAAF out-of-competition testing and intelligence coordinator. “The ultimate goal of this investigation is to stop her working, to stop her being an active agent, to stop her being involved in the sport.”

Three Kenyans who worked with Mikhaylova have been caught doping since 2012. Jynocel Basweti, the father of Mariita’s two-year-old daughter, tested positive at a Mexican marathon for a steroid. Nixon Kiplagat Cherutich was busted for a by-product of the steroid nandrolone, also in Mexico. And Mariita failed two doping tests in eight months—the one in Frankfort and also one in Mexico.

Mariita, speaking exclusively to The Associated Press (AP), detailed a regimen of unidentified pills she said Mikhaylova told her were vitamins. Her racing schedule was aggressive, aimed at maximizing prize

(Wada), and from Kenyan athletes concerned they might be turned away from overseas races, including the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in August. Wada has given Kenya until next Tuesday to comply with anti-doping rules. Missing that deadline could put the onus on the IAAF to suspend Kenya from international competition, as it has for Russia.

The culture of doping has a particularly strong grip on second- and third-tier Kenyan runners, who mostly race abroad, aren’t tested regularly and won’t compete in Rio. As well as Mikhaylova’s camp, the IAAF said it is also investigating other groups of runners in the US and Mexico.

Mikhaylova runs her stable out of a two-story house in a working-class neighborhood in Newport, Kentucky. The house contains dozens of medals and ribbons, hung haphazardly, two and three deep, won by her runners in places such as Akron, Ohio; Fort Worth, Texas; Duluth, Minnesota.

Mikhaylova emphatically denied ever giving drugs to any athlete. She said she provides services for East Africans far from home, entering them in 5Ks, 10Ks, marathons and half-marathons she thinks they can win and looking after their daily needs in exchange for a 15-percent cut. Runners pay her $10 rent per night, deducted from their earnings, which are wired home.

The runners stay for a month or two and then go back to Kenya, or sometimes Mexico, to train.

It can be an aggressive schedule: In 2014 Mariita ran 24 races in 13 states, earning $24,000—more than what 99 percent of Kenyans earn at home.

Mikhaylova also has represented Shitaye Gemechu, an Ethiopian who tested positive for EPO in 2009 and was banned for two years, and Aissa Dghoughi, a Moroccan who got a three-year ban in 2006 for fleeing an antidoping control in Switzerland.

Without waiting for the outcome of the IAAF probe, race directors in the US are now distancing themselves from her group.

When she e-mailed organizers in Indianapolis in May 2015 to enter two runners in their Monumental Mile, they responded with a copy of their new anti-doping policy, which specifies that athletes are ineligible for prize money if they work with agents who have had two or more athletes banned.

For Mikhaylova, the organizers highlighted that part in yellow. AP

sports

money. She said Mikhaylova gave her three reddish capsules the day of the Frankfort race and regularly gave her tablets for other races, starting from when she joined her camp in 2011.

Mikhaylova, herself the 1998 European Cup champion at 800 meters, denied ever giving tablets to Mariita and said she repeatedly asked her if she doped and warned that she wouldn’t work with her if she did.

Mikhaylova told the AP that she registers athletes only for US races and that runners were on their own when they competed in Mexico.

The runners in Mikhaylova’s stable help illustrate the reach of a doping crisis in Kenya’s thriving but illregulated running program. The East African powerhouse of distance running won 11 athletics medals at the 2012 London Olympics but has also since suffered the ignominy of having 38 runners banned for doping violations.

The sluggish response of Kenyan authorities is generating pressure for remedial action from the IAAF and the World Anti-Doping Agency

U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry (left) meets with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif at the United Nations headquarters in this photo taken on September 26, 2015. AP

T

advanced students there and explored very famous sites—famous buildings, temples, landmarks, even the tombs of famous figures-politicians and businesspeople to see their feng shui. So I took the photos and videos (from that period) and put all of the findings into this book. It’s like a pictorial book, so if you are going to Taiwan for a holiday, get a copy, and go on a feng shui journey.

LIFE

U.S. TWEAKING FINANCIAL RULES TO HELP IRAN

Our financial system is at stake.”—Dooc

Success & politics in 2016 with Dato Joey Yap

WO thousand sixteen is the Year of the Fire Monkey, a very important year for us Filipinos in one way or another. We caught up with Dato Joey Yap, one of the world’s foremost experts in Chinese metaphysics, to get an inside track to what this year holds for us politically.

“Dato Joey who?” one might ask. Dato Joey Yap, or Joey as he is fondly called, is the founder of the Mastery Academy of Chinese Metaphysics, a global organization devoted to the teaching of subjects like BaZi, Qi Men Dun Jia, Mian Xiang, Feng Shui and other subjects. Having started learning the esoteric arts at age 15, he became a self-made millionaire by 26 and is currently chief consultant of the Joey Yap Consulting Group, the world’s largest and most successful feng shui consulting firm. A highly prolific author on Chinese metaphysics, he is the best-

P25.00 nationwide | 5 sections 34 pages | 7 days a week

C1

No need to veer away from current foreign-exchange policy–Tetangco

T

By Bianca Cuaresma

he local currency the peso has shown signs of renewed strength against the US greenback, its value having moved back however briefly to the 45 per dollar level on Thursday, boosting hopes of a slightly stronger but more stable currency down the line.

Data from the PDS show the local currency at the 45-territory again, trading as high as 45.9 but no weaker than 46.07 during the day. This proved stronger than a day earlier when the unit traded from a high of 46.03 to a low of 46.18 per dollar.

Later at the close of trading, the local unit stood 4 centavos weaker to

PESO exchange rates n US 46.1080

only 46.07 from 46.03 per dollar on Wednesday. Total traded volume aggregated only $600 million, sharply lower than transactions reaching $925.5 million on Wednesday.

Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Governor Amando M. Tetangco Jr. said the strength of the peso represented the carry-over momentum generated by dovish comments from the US Federal Reserve.

“The BSP is monit2oring market-price action. So far, the peso has continued to move in the middle of the pack of regional currencies. Thus, no need for specific action on our part at this time,” Tetangco told reporters.

“This seems to indeed have given the market more confidence to take on risk,

as evidenced from the positive sentiment on EM [emerging market] assets/currencies today,” he said.

Despite the optimism, Tetangco said the markets should, however, be careful not to get ahead of themselves, even as the underlying US economic trend continues to be relatively better than the rest of the world.

“We don’t see any need to veer away from current monetary stance and foreign-exchange policy, but we will make adjustments should such be needed to keep any buildup of unwarranted market exuberance at bay,” Tetangco said.

Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) research officer Nicholas Antonio Mapa

he Obama administration may soon tell foreign governments and banks they can start using the dollar in some instances to facilitate business with Iran, officials told The Associated Press, describing an arcane tweak to US financial rules that could prove significant for Tehran’s sanctionsbattered economy.

While no decision is final, US officials familiar with internal discussions said the Treasury Department is considering issuing a general license that would permit offshore financial institutions to access dollars for foreign-currency trades in support of legitimate business with Iran, a practice that is currently illegal.

Several restrictions would apply, but such a license would reverse a ban that has been in place for several years and one the administration had vowed to maintain, while defending last year’s nuclear deal to skeptical US lawmakers and the public.

The United States and other world powers reached agreement with Iran last summer to give the Islamic Republic billions of dollars in sanctions relief, in exchange for its promise to curtail programs that would allow it to develop nuclear weapons.

Because of its status as the world’s dominant currency, the dollar often is used in money conversions.

For example: If the Iranians want to sell oil to India and be paid in euros instead of rupees, so they could more easily purchase European goods, the process commonly starts with the rupees being converted into dollars.

American sanctions block Iran from exchanging the money on its own. And Asian and European banks have steered clear of such transactions, fearful of US regulators who have levied billions of dollars in fines in recent years and threatened transgressors with a cutoff from the far more lucrative American market.

Using dollars to make even a rupees-to-euros conversion, following that example, would still involve the money entering the US financial system, if only momentarily.

Dropping the prohibition would go a long way to meet Iran’s complaints that the West hasn’t sufficiently rewarded it for taking thousands of uraniumspinning centrifuges offline, exporting its stockpile of the bomb-making material and disabling a facility that would have been able to produce weapons-grade plutonium. But it surely would prompt intense opposition from critics of last July’s nuclear accord.

If approved, the new guidance would allow dollars to be used in currency exchanges as long as no Iranian banks are involved, according to the officials, who weren’t authorized to speak publicly on the matter and demanded anonymity. No Iranian rials can enter See “U.S.,” A2

See “Foreign-exchange policy,” A2

n japan 0.4101 n UK 66.2987 n HK 5.9472 n CHINA 7.1262 n singapore 34.1591 n australia 35.3556 n EU 52.2588 n SAUDI arabia 12.2974

Source: BSP (31 March 2016 )

BMReports BusinessMirror

A2 Friday, April 1, 2016

16th Congress. . .

Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) member and Insurance Commissioner Emmanuel F. Dooc said the council is now finalizing a draft measure tweaking the bank-secrecy law to combat money-laundering.

This is amid the ongoing probe on the $81-million cyber heist and money-laundering case involving Philippine financial institutions and companies.

Dooc said President Aquino will certify the bill as urgent. However, according to Belmonte and Gonzales, the remaining days of the 16th Congress will be allotted for the canvassing of votes.

“I’m not aware of it [AMLC’s draft bill]. We have limited period this 16th Congress. There’s a lot of chance [that the bill will pass in] the 17th Congress,” Belmonte said.

“We don’t have enough time [to tackle the bill]. Our time will be devoted to the canvassing when we return on May 23,” Gonzales said.

Dooc also admitted that the chances of these amendments being passed before the elections are very slim.

Continued from A1

“Now, there’s a sense of urgency to review laws as regards money laundering. We need to combat money laundering and terrorist financing because if the international community will not perceive us as doing our homework, the entire country will suffer. Our financial system is at stake,” he said.

Based on the legislative calendar, Congress sessions adjourned on February 3 as part of its preparation for the May national and local elections, and resume from May 23 to June 10 for the canvassing.

The two chambers will convene first as National Board of Canvassers (NBCs) before the approval of other pending priority bills.

Under the Constitution, Congress—or the Senate and the House of Representatives in joint session—will act as the NBCs to canvass the votes and proclaim the winners in the presidential and vice-presidential race.

Dirty money

Meanwhile, Nationalist People’s Coalition Rep. Sherwin Gatchalian

Foreign-exchange policy. . .

Continued from A1

said the newfound strength of the peso is a reflection of the unit joining other units in a “regional chorus” of sorts.

“The peso has seen marked appreciation pressure of late on the back of a dovish Yellen who is espousing patience and caution before hiking further as she deems it necessary to assess the impact of the recent global turmoil and low oil price environment to inflation and

the labor market in the United States,” Mapa said in response to a BusinessMirror query.

“Risk currencies have been having a heyday with this development and the peso is simply joining in the regional chorus,” Mapa added.

A s for the central bank, Mapa said the BSP seem to not favor any particular peso bias and has used movements as opportunities to better the dollar

of Valenzuela and Party-list Rep. Terry Ridon of Kabataan have said there is clearly a need to strengthen the Anti-Money Laundering Act (AMLA) of 2001 in the next Congress, following the problem faced by probers in getting to the bottom of the $81-million cyber heist.

T he law ma kers said the amendment should include real-estate properties and casinos in mandatory searches and investigations in line with the pursuit of “dirty money.” Moreover, Gatchalian said he will be pushing for amendments to the AMLA to include casinos among the covered institutions.

“Amending the AMLA is long overdue. I fully agree that casinos and related businesses should be included on the list of covered institutions that would have to report suspicious transactions to the Anti-Money Laundering Council,” Gatchalian said.

The issue of the exclusion of casinos in the AMLA has resurfaced following reports that around $​81​ million in laundered funds have entered the country and found their way to three casinos that include Solaire, City of Dreams and Midas. position of the country.

“The BSP has been busy stemming the appreciation trend from what I can see, which is good to note as the BSP is a central bank that plays both sides of the currency pair,” Mapa said.

“In times of stark depreciation pressure, the BSP has stepped in to slow the weakness of the peso and in the same token, the BSP is now stepping in the market to weed out any speculative plays in the FX market. As such, it is restocking on reserves, precisely for use during times of financial distress,” he further explained.

Gatchalian has​ long been saying that casinos are among the institutions that are extremely vulnerable to money-​l aundering activities and should be placed under close supervision.

He said there is a need to upgrade the AMLA and subject it to muchneeded and timely reforms to make it more compliant to international standards set by the world’s financial institutions and watchdogs.​ “The government should maintain the country’s good standing with the international financial system by amending the AMLA. It’​s about time that the AMLC be given additional powers over casinos to make sure that these can no longer be used in money-​l aundering activities,” Gatchalian said.

Gatchalian added there is also a need to revisit the congressional franchises being given to the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp.

(Pagcor), which acts as concurrent casino regulator and operator. . “There is a contradiction to the function of Pagcor as both regulator and operator, since as regulator, it issues licenses to privately owned casinos, which are now being used

U.S. . . .

Continued from A1

into the transaction, and the payment wouldn’t be able to start or end with American dollars. The ban would still apply if the final payment is intended for an Iranian individual or business on a US sanctions blacklist.

The administration has hinted the US could introduce new sanctions concessions, but has confirmed nothing.

In a speech Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew lauded Iran for accepting the nuclear deal to achieve its goal of ending Western sanctions.

in money-​laundering activities. As operator, Pagcor can have its own casinos which are also not covered

by AMLA,” Gatchalian said Dooc, who is representing the AMLC in the Senate investigations as one of the ex-officio members said among the proposed amendments to the AMLA that they will submit is the relaxation of the banksecrecy law.

“All of the members of the AMLC are for the relaxation of the bank- secrecy law. But personally, I’m for the total lifting of the bank-secrecy law,” Dooc said in his regular media conference to report the developments in the insurance industry.

The current bank-secrecy lawsaccords absolute confidentiality to peso bank deposits, except upon written permission by the depositor, or in cases of impeachment, or upon order of a competent court in cases of bribery or dereliction of duty of public officials, or in cases where the money deposited or invested is the very subject matter of the litigation.

Other exceptions under the bank- secrecy law is when a taxpayer applies for a tax compromise with “Since Iran has kept its end of the deal, it is our responsibility to uphold ours, in both letter and spirit,” he told the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Lew warned that “sanctions overreach” risked driving business away from the United States, hurting the US and global economy and empowering economic rivals.

“Our central role must not be taken for granted,” he said. “If foreign jurisdictions and companies feel that we will deploy sanctions without sufficient justification or for inappropriate reasons — secondary sanctions, in particular — we should not be surprised if they look

news@businessmirror.com.ph the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), in which case, he is required to waive the confidentiality of his bank deposits before the BIR even considers his application.

In the case of foreign-currency deposits, however, the only exception to the absolute confidentiality is when the depositor gives his written waiver, and “in no instance shall such foreigncurrency deposits be examined, inquired or looked into by any person, government official, bureau or office, whether judicial or administrative or private.”

One of the amendments which the AMLC is pushing for enactment by Congress is the inclusion of casinos and dealers in valuable objects, like jewelry and artwork, on the list of entities required to report suspicious transactions that can be modes of money-laundering.

Another amendment to the anti-money-laundering laws being proposed by AMLC is the shortening of the period within which suspicious transactions would have to be reported to the AMLC, from the current period of 10 days to the original period of only five days. for ways to avoid doing business in the United States or in US dollars.”

Members of Congress are crying foul. The 2012 National Defense Authorization Act instructs the president to “block and prohibit” all Iranian assets if they “come within the United States, or are or come within the possession or control of a United States person.”

In a letter to Lew on Wednesday, Republican Sens. Marco Rubio and Mark Kirk said any Iranian access to dollars “would benefit Iran’s financiers of international terrorism, human rights abuses and ballistic missile threats.” AP

BMReports BusinessMirror

news@businessmirror.com.ph

Friday, April 1, 2016 A3

Emirates’s new circular service seen boosting PHL-Dubai trade, tourism

L

By Lorenz S. Marasigan

APU-LAPU CITY, Cebu—The newly launched circular service of gulf carrier Emirates here will further develop trade and tourism between the Philippines and Dubai, ranking government and company officials said on Wednesday.

The first-ever Dubai-CebuClark-Dubai circular flight in the Philippines landed on the MactanCebu International Airport on Wednesday, and was greeted with a traditional water-cannon salute upon arrival.

Adnan Kazim, Emirates’s divisional senior vice president, Strategic Planning, Revenue Optimization and Aeropolitical Affairs, said his company is bullish that this new daily service will make a positive impact on the Philippine

$100M Estimated investment of Emirates in the country

tourism sector, while encouraging increased trade between Dubai and the Philippines.

“We are confident that our new service will have a positive impact on the development of tourism and trade in the Philippines’s regional economies. Furthermore, our extensive global network of over 150 destinations will help enhance connectivity for Cebu and Clark, providing more markets for regional products and additional opportunities for inbound tourism,” he said.

The service will also provide more choice for travelers from the Philippines, who will be able to conveniently connect to 39 cities in Europe, 16 in the Middle East, as well as a number of destinations across the airline’s extensive network in Africa and South America via one stop in our hub in Dubai, Emirates Senior Vice President Commercial Operations Far East Badr Abbas added.

Utilizing a two-class Boeing 777-300ER, the service will provide travelers from and near both Cebu and Clark with convenient and fast connections to destinations in the Middle East, Africa, Europe and the Americas, via Dubai.

Tra nspor t at ion Secret a r y Joseph Emilio A. Abaya said his office welcomes this develop-

ment, as the service gives overseas Filipino workers a faster and easier choice when coming home to Cebu.

Abbas noted that the “service is also good news for Philippine exporters, as the airline can now accommodate more, especially those products that come f rom t he V i say a s a nd Northern Luzon.”

Export of live fish and other perishable products can now be accommodated as the early morning arrival in Dubai makes seamless connections to most of Europe and beyond possible.

Furthermore, exporters and agents from Clark will now be able to save on trucking costs and time lost to delivering cargo to Manila, especially during peak hours when road congestion makes

travel unbearable.

The two-class configured Boeing 777-300ER offers 42 seats in Business Class and 386 seats in Economy. Passengers travelling on Emirates’s Boeing 777-300ER will be able to enjoy the airline’s award-winning ice-entertainment system with up to 2,000 channels of on-demand entertainment to choose from, including Filipino movies and music.

Emirates flights to and from the Philippines also cater to the needs of the Filipino market with Filipino-speaking cabin crew onboard, and in-flight cuisine options with popular Filipino dishes.

The gulf carrier—which has invested roughly $100 million in the Philippines so far—employs almost 5,000 Filipinos, including over 1,050 cabin crew.

Singapore no longer top IPO destination in region S

ingapore’s reign as the premier destination for initial public offerings in Southeast Asia has come to an end.

The city-state’s exchange had the smallest haul of new share sales among the region’s four largest stock markets in 2015. Listings this year on Southeast Asia’s biggest bourse have totaled $34 million, lagging Thailand and Malaysia.

Singapore’s slide down the IPO rankings reflects not so much its own failings, but the growing ability of rivals from Jakarta to Bangkok to convince local issuers to stay at home instead of flocking to the regional hub. Indonesia, which has Southeast Asia’s biggest population and largest economy, plans to start an exchange dedicated to young technology companies, while Thailand’s premier has highlighted the importance of the country’s capital markets.

“The smaller Southeast Asian exchanges have been promoting themselves as a listing venue,” said Pankaj Goel, cohead of Southeast Asia investment banking at Credit Suisse Group AG. “It makes sense for Indonesian companies to list in Jakarta and for Thai companies to list on Thailand’s stock exchange.”

Singapore’s decline in new listings adds to the challenges faced by Boon Chye Loh, who became CEO of the city’s exchange in July and has been trying to restore confidence in a market where turnover hasn’t recovered from a mystery penny-stock crash in 2013.

Companies that listed last year in Singapore raised $366 million, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, its worst performance since 2001. The amount was less than 10 percent of funds raised from Thailand’s IPOs, just a third of Malaysia’s and half of Indonesia’s, the data show.

Of the 13 IPOs in Singapore in 2015, four were from foreign firms—two Malaysians, one Chinese and one Israeli.

In 2010, 10 foreign companies from China, Indonesia, Malaysia and Norway were among the 31 listing debuts in the city state.

Globally, companies have raised $14.5 billion from IPOs in 2016, a 67-percent plunge from the same period last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

“The competition is not so much between one exchange and another but ensuring that there are enough listingready candidates,” said Lee Suet Fern, managing partner at law firm Morgan Lewis Stamford Llc.

Local efforts

The Indonesia Stock Exchange is trying to persuade local companies listed in Singapore as well as foreign natural

resources firms operating in its country to list in Jakarta. The push is part of an effort to become Southeast Asia’s biggest stock exchange within five years, CEO Tito Sulistio said in February. He is also asking for rule changes to enable IPOs for real estate trusts and more state-owned enterprises.

The Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) has been pitching to multinational companies with operations in the country, according to PSE President Hans Sicat.

Phoenix Semiconductor Philippines Corp., a unit of South Korea’s STS Semiconductor & Telecommunications Co., debuted in Manila in 2014.

Malaysian companies including palm oil producer Felda Global Ventures Holdings Bhd., billionaire T. Ananda Krishnan’s Astro Malaysia Holdings Bhd. and IHH Healthcare Bhd., Asia’s biggest hospital operator, chose to list at home in recent years, Bursa Malaysia Bhd. CEO Tajuddin Atan said.

It’s not just the big local companies that Malaysia is attracting. Bursa Malaysia last July tweaked its listing rules to boost its attractiveness and cut compliance costs, said Tajuddin. In Thailand local companies raised the most in Southeast Asia in the past three years after its stock exchange introduced rules for listing infrastructure funds, said Santi Keranand, head of the issuer marketing division at the Stock Exchange of Thailand. Such projects accounted for about 45 percent of the amount raised from IPOs since 2013, he said.

Debt role

Vietnam’s Hanoi Stock Exchange touts its regulated over- the-counter market UpCom for companies not ready to list on the main exchange, said Nguyen Anh Phong, the bourse’s deputy CEO. The number of companies on UpCom is expected to increase by 12 percent to 300 by the end of the year, he said.

The country’s larger bourse, Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange, is working with the regulator to boost investor access and get the nation upgraded to emerging market status, said Le Hai Tra, deputy CEO. Having a “large number” of state-owned companies seeking a listing means a strong IPO pipeline, Tra said. Vietnam leads the regional pack in 2016 with 35 companies raising just over $170 million.

Singapore will continue to be relevant as a listing destination, said Michael Wu, an analyst at Morningstar in Hong Kong. The island’s pro-business regulatory environment, political stability and robust currency makes it an ideal place for issuers and investors, he said.

“The growth of Southeast Asian bourses is positive as it benefits the region,

making us collectively a more vibrant capital market,” said Chew Sutat, head of equities and fixed income at SGX. Chew pointed to the $115 billion in debt raised by companies on the Singapore bourse last year and a new initiative to help firms not ready for an IPO secure funds. Foreign issuers accounted for 83 percent of the debt raised in 2015, according to the Singapore Exchange.

Despite that trend, on the stock-listing side there appears to have been a substantive shift.

“The age-old view that there are only three main hubs in Asia, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Singapore will probably not be the same in the future,” Sicat said.

NEW WESTERN UNION BRAND AMBASSADOR Western Union (WU) officials present John

Lloyd Cruz (center) as the company’s new brand ambassador. Presenting Cruz to the media are Patricia Riingen (left), Western Union senior vice president, Southeast Asia and Oceania; and Steve Peregrino, marketing director for Southeast Asia and Oceania. NONIE REYES

BMReports BusinessMirror

A4 Friday, April 1, 2016

news@businessmirror.com.ph

Neda: PHL middle class already living life most Pinoys want for themselves in 2040

T

By Cai U. Ordinario

HE Pinoy middle class is already living the life that the majority of Filipinos can only dream of living in 2040, the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) said.

Based on the results of the longterm vision the Neda calls AmBisyon2040, data showed 79.2 percent of Filipinos only want a simple and comfortable life in 25 years.

Only 3.9 percent of Filipinos want the life of the wealthy.

Neda Deputy Director General Rosemarie Edillon said the AmBisyon2040 data were obtained from responses in 42 focus-group discussions (FGDs) and 10,000 survey respondents nationwide.

The Neda said the seemingly “low aspirations” of Filipinos reflected the dire economic straits experienced by millions nationwide.

“In part, yes [things are that bad], because we all know from statistics that we still have some ways to go. We keep repeating that, regardless of the progress that has been made—and we recognize that progress has been made—there is still a lot of catching up to do,” Economic Planning Secretary Emmanuel F. Esguerra said.

“It’s also, in a way, influenced by what they experience on a daily basis. The aspiration, naturally, is the opposite of that, to be able to free oneself from those constraints that make living a daily struggle,” he said.

A simple and comfortable life means owning a medium-sized home, earning enough to support everyday needs; owning at least one car/vehicle; providing for their children’s college education; and traveling around the country for vacation.

Data from the Philippine Statistics Authority showed there were 23.75 million poor Filipinos, including 9.81 million Filipinos living in extreme poverty, in the full year of 2012.

Data showed that 73 percent of respondents said they want to earn enough and provide for the college education of their children and 62

10,000 Respondents to the Neda study

percent want to own a car/vehicle.

The Neda said 61 percent said they want to have enough money for daily needs and own a mediumsized home, while 30 percent said they want to be a business owner and relax with family and friends.

Around 21 percent of respondents said they want to be able to take occasional trips around the country.

While 79 percent of Filipinos want to live within the same city they work in and only 7 percent want to work and live elsewhere, the majority of Filipinos prefer to be mobile.

Filipinos want to be able to have mobility for day-to-day living and leisure purposes, and travel locally and abroad with family.

In terms of the mode of transportation, around 77 percent want to own a car/vehicle, and only 23 percent want to travel using good public transportation.

Esguerra said these data reflect some of the key reforms that the government needs to make in order to give Filipinos the kind of life they want to live.

“We need to take a look at where we were before. But there is no denying that there are still problems,” Esguerra said. “The fact that people prefer to have their own means of transportation is a reflection of the fact that they don’t have a good experience with public transportation.”

Esguerra said instituting these reforms is the primary role that the government will play in helping Filipinos realize the kind of life they want to live.

HELP FROM SEN. CYNTHIA VILLAR

Sen. Cynthia A. Villar awards livelihood and financial assistance to five overseas Filipino Workers from Nueva Ecija who were repatriated after experiencing misfortunes abroad. Receiving financial assistance and a start-up “sari-sari” store package from Villar at the Senate floor are Nova Corbe, Juvy Dizon, Joyce Wy, Elaiza Nicolas and Maricel Miguel. ROY DOMINGO

These include crafting and implementing reforms that further economic growth; invest in people and protect them against economic, social and other shocks that may cause instability in their lives.

Without these reforms, Esguerra said that, instead of being able to grow the country’s per-capita income to $11,000 in 2040, per-capita incomes can only rise to around $5,000 in 25 years, from the current $3,500 level.

“Note that over the last 33 years [1981-2014], we were only able to raise our real per-capita income by 1.8 times,” Esguerra said.

“In contrast, without reforms, per-capita income can only grow to around $5,000 over a period of 25 years, i.e., not even double the current level of $3,500,” he added.

With this, the Neda chief said,

Closing tax havens will create fairer global society–US economist

S

topping abuse of tax havens and promoting global tax cooperation will help create a fairer global society, Jeffrey Sachs, US economist and UN special adviser on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) told reporters on Wednesday.

Sachs made the statement at a news conference here on the sidelines of a UN event on SDG10, which aims to reduce inequality within and among countries.

When countries could not raise enough taxes, Sachs said, they were unable to provide many of the services required for achieving the 17 SDGs,, approved by world leaders in September 2015, including health, education, nutrition and a safe environment.

“There are many countries in the world that are deficient in their tax-raising effort,” he said, “this comes at a very high cost and usually high inequality, because the poor become highly vulnerable.”

For many developing countries tax revenues are very low, and this can be made worse when multinational corporations illegally move money to so-called tax havens to avoid paying taxes in the countries where they operate.

“International cooperation is necessary, so that we don’t race to the bottom of countries that are offering certain kinds of impunity or hidden secrecy or cuts in taxes to try to attract capital,” Sachs said.

According to the UN Economic Commission for Africa, African countries lose at least

an estimated $50 billion each year to illicit financial flows, although this is considered a conservative estimate. The amount lost to illicit financial flows almost doubles what African countries receive in aid money from rich countries.

The Group of 77 plus China (G77+China), which represents 134 countries, called for an intergovernmental body for tax cooperation to be established to help fund the Sustainable Development Goals at the Addis Ababa Financing for Development Conference in June 2015.

However, agreement was not reached by the international community at the meeting and the body was not established.

“Addis Ababa meeting had a lot of debate on tax-cooperation issues and as a result, we are now discussing how we can strengthen the existing mechanism that deals with international tax issues,” said President of the UN Economic and Social Council Oh Joon, who also spoke at the news conference.

“We haven’t reached an agreement on how we will specifically go about it but I think that we will have that soon, but definitely the mechanism will be strengthened compared to previous years,” said Oh, the UN ambassador of the Republic of Korea. Sachs added that addressing other issues, such as governance and transparency, is also important.

“Cracking down on corruption is vital, as well, because corruption is one of the important reasons for high inequality,” he said. PNA

this can contribute to efforts to eradicate poverty nationwide by 2040 or even sooner.

The Neda stressed that part of the country’s commitment when it agreed to adopt the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in September 2015 was to eradicate poverty by 2030.

Under SDG 1 on poverty eradication, countries like the Philippines must eradicate poverty for all people, including those living on less than $1.25 a day; reduce by half the proportion of men, women and children of all ages living in poverty; and implement socialprotection systems that cover the poor and the vulnerable.

Not a plan, not a campaign

EDILLON said AmBisyon2040 is not a long-term plan. It was

merely a long-term vision from which future administrations can choose to draw their policies and reforms from.

The Philippines is not a stranger to crafting long-term plans. The Ramos administration crafted Philippines 2000, which contained set policy strategies and other pertinent information that normally comprised a plan.

However, AmBisyon2040 does not prescribe policy strategies and specific reforms. It only contained data on Filipinos’ aspirations.

The FGDs were conducted mainly among marginalized groups, including indigenous peoples, while the survey was conducted across the ABCDE income groups.

She said in one month to two months, the government will translate this into monetary and economic

targets that succeeding administrations can base their long- and medium-term plans on.

Edillon and Esguerra also recommended that the AmBisyon2040 data-gathering exercise be done after the end of each medium-term plan, or after a decade.

This is crucial, since Edillon said the vision of Filipinos for themselves and their country will change over time. This may render some policy reforms and solutions outdated.

The Neda officials were also keen on stressing that Ambisyon2040 is not an endorsement of the status quo or a campaign tool for the current administration.

T hey said the data merely provided current information that can be used in national planning.

Oil declines as rising US crude stockpiles expand global glut The rally was overdone, and the expectation is for a further O moderation of prices.”—CMC Markets il declined, as rising US crude stockpiles kept supplies at the highest level in more than eight decades.

Futures slid as much as 1.5 percent in New York, after closing little changed on Wednesday. Inventories expanded for a seventh week to 534.8 million barrels, according to a report from the Energy Information Administration (EIA). Imports and production dropped. Ecuador and Venezuela will support a cut to output at a meeting between major exporters in Doha next month, Ecuador’s Oil Minister Carlos Pareja said in a post on the ministry’s Twitter account.

Oil is up about 12 percent in March, after rebounding from a 12-year low last month amid speculation the global surplus will ease as US output declines. Saudi Arabia, Russia, Qatar and Venezuela agreed in February they would cap production at January levels if other producers followed suit to tackle the oversupply. They’ll meet again with other countries in Doha on April 17.

“The rally was overdone and the expectation is for a further moderation of prices,” Michael McCarthy, a chief strategist at CMC Markets in Sydney, said by phone.

“While the outlook is more constructive for energy markets over the next 12 months, the current supply imbalance and the huge inventories mean it’s very hard to get too positive on oil prices anytime soon.”

West Texas Intermediate for May delivery fell as much as 58 cents to $37.74 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange and was at $37.86 at 12:09 p.m. Hong Kong time. The contract gained 4 cents to $38.32 Wednesday.

Total volume traded was about 8 percent below the 100-day average. Prices are 2.2 percent higher this quarter.

US stockpiles

Brent for May settlement, which expires Thursday, dropped as much as 45 cents, or 1.2 percent, to $38.81 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange.

Prices have gained 8.2 percent this month and 4.4 percent this quarter. The more actively traded June contract fell 36 cents

to $39.69. The global benchmark crude is trading at a premium of $1.05 to WTI. US crude inventories increased by 2.3 million barrels last week, the EIA said in a report on Wednesday. Supplies at Cushing, Oklahoma, the delivery point for WTI and the nation’s biggest oilstorage hub, dropped by 272,000 barrels. Production slid for a third week to 9.02 million barrels a day.

Production freeze and oil market news: Oman will attend a meeting between oil exporters in Doha next month, according to a person familiar with policy who asked not to be identified.

Eni SpA started pumping crude through a pipeline in Nigeria after production was halted following an act of sabotage on March 24, according to the company.

Saudi Arabian Oil Co. is pressing ahead with an expansion of the Khurais oil field despite lower prices, the company’s CEO said. Bloomberg News

AseanFriday BusinessMirror

news@businessmirror.com.ph

Thai sugar exports seen at 3-year low as El Niño stings crop

S

7.98 MT

ugar exports by Thailand may fall to the least since 2013 as El Niño-induced Thailand’s sugar drought reduces production in the world’s shipments last second-biggest exporter, year according to the nation’s top shipper.

Shipments may tumble 12 percent to 7 million metric tons (MMT) this year from 7.98 million tons (MT) last year, Piromsak Sasunee, chief executive officer of Bangkok-based Thai Sugar Trading Corp., said in an interview. Output may drop by 12 percent to 9.9 MT, he said.

Futures in New York rallied to a 17-month high last week, as the strongest El Niño in two decades curbed output in China, India and Thailand, exacerbating a global deficit. The world market is heading for a second annual deficit, following halfa-decade of surpluses. Raw-sugar production may fall by the most in seven years to 171.1 MT in the 2015 and 2016 season, as droughts in Asia are reaching the “worst-case scenario,” researcher F.O. Licht estimates.

“Cane output will fall significantly as severe drought hurts crops, pulling down sugar production, consequently,” Piromsak said by phone from Bangkok. Plantations in the country’s central and northern regions were the most affected by the drought, which will cut total cane output to 95 MT in 2015 and 2016, he added. The Southeast Asian nation produced a record 11.3 MT of sugar from cane crushing of 106 MT a year earlier.

Indonesia tax

Exports to Indonesia, the world’s largest buyer after China, may rise to around 3 MT this year from 1.9 MT last year on lower import tax, said Piromsak. The tax cut effective since the beginning of this year makes Thai sweetener cheaper than last year and also other origins, he said.

Shipments to China may remain steady at 887,512 tons, according to Piromsak.

World consumption will exceed production by 4.95 MT of raw sugar in the 2016 and 2017 season, 19 percent more than a January forecast, Green Pool Commodity Specialists said last week. The researcher also raised its estimate for the 2015 and 2016 shortage to 6.65 MT from 4.14 MT previously. Bloomberg News

Editor: Max V. de Leon • Friday, April 1, 2016 A5

Ringgit jumps most since 1973 to defy bears as oil eclipses 1MDB

M

alaysia’s oil exports have turned the ringgit into Asia’s best-performing currency, even as analysts say it’s the least attractive.

Forecastersare predicting the ringgit will weaken 8.4 percent this year for the biggest drop in the region, and some of them even see it falling beyond a 17-year low reached in September. The bearish calls peaked around the end of January, when Swiss investigators said a probe into stateowned 1Malaysia Development Bhd. revealed about $4 billion may have gone missing.

The ringgit has confounded those calls by surging 9.5 percent this quarter, the most in 43 years. Oil’s gains have been a big part of that—crude accounts for 22 percent of Malaysian government revenue and the nation is Asia’s only major net exporter—along with tax increases and spending cuts. Now 1MDB is adding to the upswing, with the state-investment fund agreeing to sell energy assets and pledging to repay 6 billion ringgit ($1.5 billion) of debt in the coming weeks.

“The ringgit is going to be one of the outperformers in the region in 2016,” said Divya Devesh, the Singapore-based foreign-exchange strategist for Asia at Standard Chartered Plc. “We are looking for a good rebound in oil prices. The market is still short ringgit so we might see continued covering of positions, which should also be supportive.”

As the Federal Reserve’s (the Fed) willingness to be gradual in raising interest rates drove emerging-market

9.5%

Ringgit’s appreciation this quarter, the most in 43 years

currencies toward their best month in 18 years, the ringgit came to the fore, reaching the highest in almost eight months at 3.9085 per dollar on Thursday.

Standard Chartered, with one of the most bullish of 27 forecasts compiled by Bloomberg, upgraded its second-quarter estimate to 4 per dollar from 4.30 on March 22. That’s based on projections Brent crude will rise above $60 a barrel by year-end and the Fed will keep interest rates on hold for 2016. And it compares with prognoses from three strategists for it to weaken past the level of 4.48 per dollar that it touched last September.

The ringgit’s climb has come even as Prime Minister Najib Razak faces calls from former leader Mahathir Mohamad to quit over $681 million that appeared in his accounts before the last election in 2013. Strategists have trimmed their bearish ringgit forecasts by about 3.6 percent for the three months through June from the end of January, with

the currency’s outlook largely resting on the sustainability of the rally in oil, gas and petrochemicals, which along with palm oil make up the biggest proportion of Malaysian shipments abroad after electronics. The nation’s exports grew at less than half the 10-year average in 2015, when the currency’s slide was compounded by the political scandal and 1MDB’s debt.

Oil bottoming

Macquarie Bank Ltd., the most accurate forecaster for the ringgit last year in Bloomberg rankings, has a June 30 estimate of 3.90 per dollar. Nizam Idris, the bank’s head of foreign- exchange and fixed-income strategy in Singapore, said that’s more to do with potential weakness in the greenback than Malaysia’s fundamentals. The projection compares with the 4.25 median estimate in Bloomberg’s survey. “Broadly, we feel that oil prices have bottomed and that is the key indicator,” said Mirza Baig, Singaporebased head of Asia Pacific currency and interest-rate strategy at BNP Paribas SA, who sees the ringgit continuing to trade around 4 per dollar. “The other positive factor is the resumption of inflows to emerging markets.”

RBC bearish

Even after analysts raised their expectations for the currency, almost all are still calling for it to drop by year-end.

Royal Bank of Canada is projecting a slide to 4.60 per dollar by June 30. That would exceed the low reached last September, when the Swiss announced a freeze on assets linked to 1MDB and the New York Times reported that a federal grand jury in the US was investigating allegations of corruption linked to Najib. The prime

minister and the state firm have consistently denied any wrongdoing.

Najib introduced a 6-percent goods and services tax in 2015 and also maintained his deficit-reduction target in January. The growth forecast was cut to 4 percent to 4.5 percent from as much as 5 percent.

1MDB raised 9.83 billion ringgit via the sale of its energy assets to China General Nuclear Power Corp. in March.

The state-investment company won’t have any more short-term debt and bank loans after the debt repayments, President Arul Kanda said in an interview in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday.

Najib maintains that the funds he received as a donation from Saudi Arabia’s royal family weren’t used for private benefit. Malaysia’s Attorney General Mohamed Apandi Ali cleared the premier of any wrongdoing in January, saying Najib returned $620 million in August 2013 that wasn’t utilized, without specifying what the rest of the money was used for.

Former Premier Mahathir and exDeputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin were among those who addressed more than 2,000 people at a convention center in the capital Kuala Lumpur on Sunday as part of a campaign to oust Najib.

“I would think a lot of the stability in the political situation has already been priced in,” said Trang Thuy Le, a Hong Kong-based macro strategist at Credit Suisse Group AG, which raised its threemonth ringgit forecast in March to 4 per dollar from 4.30. “Given the dovish tone of the Fed, we think that the dollar will likely continue to drift in the coming months and, because of the energy prices, Malaysian exports could be more resilient than we thought initially.”

Bloomberg News

Myanmar democracy takes momentous step with new president

P

resident Barack Obama says the inauguration of Myanmar’s new president marks a historic milestone in the country’s transition to a democratically elected, civilian-led government.

He adds that Htin Kyaw’s (tihn chow’s) swearing-in is a testament to everyone who worked to ensure a peaceful transfer of power after more than 50 years of military control over Myanmar’s government.

The 70-year-old Htin Kyaw is a trusted aide to ruling party leader and democracy advocate Aung San Suu Kyi. Obama says Myanmar, also known as Burma, still faces significant challenges. He says those challenges include achieving broadbased economic development and promoting the rights and freedoms of its people.

But he says the US will remain a “friend and partner” of the new government as it strives toward a more inclusive, peaceful and prosperous future.

In a day full of ceremony and symbolism, Htin Kyaw was sworn in along with his two vice presidents and 18 Cabinet ministers. Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace laureate and face of Myanmar’s pro-democracy movement, takes on a prominent role as the country’s new foreign minister and the head of three other ministries—education, energy and the presidential office.

“The Union Parliament has elected me as president, which is a historic moment for this country,” Htin Kyaw, 70, said in a speech after being sworn in. He pledged to work toward national reconciliation, strive for peace with warring ethnic rebels and improving the lives of Myanmar’s 54 million people.

While it was a historic day for the impoverished Southeast Asian country, democracy remains incomplete.

The military retains considerable power in the government and parliament, and the president himself

will play second fiddle to Suu Kyi. She cannot be president because of a constitutional manipulation engineered by the military, and has repeatedly said she will run the country from behind the scenes.

“I am very happy that we have a president who represents people,” said Mar Thin, a 50-year-old street cleaner. She said she used to own 70 acres (28 hectares) of land that she and her sister inherited from their father before the military kicked them out and appropriated the land for the defense ministry.

“I hope that the new government can solve the land confiscation problem and let us own our land as farmers. All we want is enough food, and to live without fear. I hope that President Htin Kyaw will do that for us because Daw Suu promised us a lot of things, and we love her, too,” Mar Thin said, using an affectionate term for Suu Kyi. Obama noted the continuing challenges for Myanmar, in a statement in which he called Htin Kyaw’s election “a historic milestone in the country’s transition to a democratically elected, civilian-led government.”

“Burma will face significant challenges going forward, including achieving broad-based economic development, advancing national reconciliation, and promoting the rights and freedoms of all its people,” Obama said. “The United States looks forward to being a friend and partner of the new government and the people of Burma as they make progress toward building a more inclusive, peaceful and prosperous future.”

Htin Kyaw’s swearing-in was held in an austere hall of parliament, with lawmakers dressed in traditional costume. A few hours later, outgoing President Thein Sein shook hands with his successor and handed him a letter and a golden sash, officially transferring power.

It was Suu Kyi who led her National League for Democracy party to a

National League for Democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi (left) and military chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing arrive at the presidential handover ceremony in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, on Wednesday. AP

landslide win in November elections, ushering in Myanmar’s first civilian government after 54 years of direct and indirect military rule.

Suu Kyi endured decades of house arrest and harassment by military rulers without ever giving up on her nonviolent campaign to unseat them. The constitutional clause that denied her the presidency excludes anyone from the position who has a foreign spouse or child. Suu Kyi’s two sons are British, as was her late husband. The clause is widely seen as having been written by the military with Suu Kyi in mind.

She has repeatedly made it clear

that she will run the government from behind the scenes, and in his speech on Wednesday, Htin Kyaw paid obeisance to Suu Kyi. “The new parliament and new government are formed in accord with the policies of the National League for Democracy led by Aung San Suu Kyi,” he said, and referred to the party’s goal to amend the constitution.

“I have the obligation to work toward achieving a constitution that has democratic norms and is suitable for the nation,” Htin Kyaw said. “I want to tell the new government, we must constantly try to fulfill the hope

and will of the people of this country.

I wish all citizens of this country a successful and peaceful life.”

The constitution, drafted under the former junta, reserves 25 percent of the seats in parliament for military officers, guaranteeing that no government can amend the constitution without the army’s approval. The military also heads the Home Ministry, the Border Affairs Ministry and the Defense Ministry, which gives it control over the corrections department, ensuring that the release of political prisoners is its decision to make.

The military also ensured that

one of Htin Kyaw’s two vice presidents is a former general, Myint Swe, a close ally of former junta leader Than Shwe. Myint Swe remains on a US Treasury Department blacklist that bars American companies from doing business with several tycoons and senior military figures connected with the former junta.

As Htin Kyaw was sworn in, Suu Kyi sat in the front row watching. The same pledge was simultaneously read

by First Vice President Myint Swe and Second Vice President Henry Van Tio. After a 20-minute tea break, the 18 members of Htin Kyaw’s Cabinet, including Suu Kyi, took a joint oath of office read out by the speaker.

Suu Kyi’s leadership of four ministries is unusual, and the lack of public criticism of her wide power is likely a sign of her continuing broad support.

Despite her inability to become president, Suu Kyi’s entry into the government is a remarkable turn of fortune not only for her, but also for the country, which had been under iron-fisted military rule for decades beginning in 1962. The junta kept Myanmar in isolation and economic stagnation, while refusing to listen to international counsel or homegrown demands for democracy.

Suu Kyi came to prominence in 1988, when popular protests were building up. The junta crushed the protests, which had turned into antigovernment riots, killing thousands of people and placing Suu Kyi under house arrest in 1989.

The junta called elections in 1990, but refused to hand over power when Suu Kyi’s party won overwhelmingly. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize a year later while under house arrest.

The junta finally started loosening its grip on power in 2010, allowing elections that were won by a military-allied party after Suu Kyi’s party boycotted the polls as unfair.

Thein Sein, a former general, was installed as president for a five-year term that started March 30, 2011, and ended on Wednesday. AP

A6 Friday, April 1, 2016

The World BusinessMirror

Brazil leader looks to shore up support in reduced coalition

news@businessmirror.com.ph

N. Korea, again, demands immediate halt to war games between U.S., S. Korea

U.S. Army soldiers conduct the annual exercise with their South Korean counterparts in Pocheon, near the border with North Korea, on March 10. AP/Ahn Young-joon

P

Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff greets supporters before the launching ceremony of the third stage of Minha Casa Minha Vida Program, at the Planalto Presidential Palace in Brasilia, Brazil, on Wednesday. Former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said on Monday that he believes Rousseff, his embattled successor and protegée, can survive mounting pressure in Congress for her impeachment. Rousseff recently appointed Silva as her chief of staff in a much-discussed move that still must be confirmed by Brazil’s top court. AP/Eraldo Peres

R

IO DE JANEIRO—President Dilma Rousseff looked on Wednesday to shore up the support of parties still in her governing coalition after Brazil’s biggest quit the bloc, complicating her fight to fend off impeachment proceedings as a plunging economy makes reforms difficult and has some lawmakers worried about hosting the Olympics in August.

A day after the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party announced that its members would be immediately giving up their six Cabinet posts and some 600 federal government jobs, it appeared at least three of its Cabinet ministers planned to stay in Rousseff’s government.

The newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo said Health Minister Marcelo Castro and Science and Technology Minister Celso Pansera wanted to work out a deal that would let them remain in the Cabinet, while Agriculture Minister Katia Abreu might sever her ties with the Democratic Movement.

Rousseff was said to be planning to use posts vacated by the Democratic Movement to strengthen her support from the six parties that remain in the governing coalition with her left-leaning Workers’ Party.

She needs to secure at least 172 of the 513 votes in the lower house of Congress to halt impeachment proceedings against her over alle-

gations her administration violated fiscal rules. A vote on the matter is expected around mid-April, and without the Democratic Movement’s 69 votes, Rousseff’s chances of surviving the vote appear diminished.

Speaking at an event for the government’s public housing program, Rousseff again lashed out at the impeachment process as an attempted “coup.” She said she did not commit any crime that would warrant her ousting.

“What we’re discussing is impeachment without responsibility for a crime. And without responsibility for a crime, that’s a coup,” she said to a crowd of enthusiastic supporters who chanted: “There won’t be a coup!”

Rousseff has seen her popularity plummet, amid a sprawling corruption scandal at state-run oil giant Petrobras that has been moving closer to her inner circle. Rousseff, a former chairman of Petrobras’s board, has not been implicated in the alleged bribery scheme, which prosecutors call the biggest ever un-

covered in Brazil.

The president’s standing also has been hurt by Brazilian anger that country has sunk into its worst recession in decades, which has put people out of work and is cutting into tax revenues.

The acting governor of Rio de Janeiro state, whose biggest city is hosting the August 5 to 21 Olympics, warned on Wednesday that the state’s finances are “tragic” and suggested selling off property to shore up barren coffers.

Francisco Dornelles told the newspaper O Globo that it would take a big effort for the state to meet all its obligations and that officials are looking for credit and other measures to bolster diminishing revenues.

“This is the worst situation I’ve seen in my political career,” he said.

His office confirmed his comments.

In the past several months, Olympics organizers in the city of Rio de Janeiro have announced many cutbacks, including to personnel at major Olympic venues.

An opinion poll released on Wednesday said just 10 percent of Brazilians have a favorable opinion of Rousseff, only slightly up from the single-digit approval ratings she had last year. The survey, by the Ibope polling agency, has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. It was conducted from March 17 to 20, with 2,002 people interviewed nationwide.

Public disgust with politicians reaches far beyond Rousseff. Vice President Michel Temer, who is first in line to assume the presidency in case of impeachment, has been sullied by accusations he took part in the Petrobras corruption scheme as have the two other figures in line to succeed Rousseff—the head of the Senate, Renan Calheiros, and the lower house, Eduardo Cunha. All three

600

The number of government jobs to be vacated by the Democratic Movement Party are members of the Democratic Alliance and all deny any wrongdoing.

The lower house’s ethics committee met on Wednesday to discuss the case against Speaker Eduardo Cunha, who stands accused of lying to a legislative investigatory panel and risks being stripped of his seat.

Cunha told the panel he didn’t have foreign bank accounts, but Swiss documents later emerged linking him to accounts that prosecutors allege held money from Petrobras kickbacks.

On Tuesday the judge in the Petrobras case, Sergio Moro, acknowledged he “may have erred” in recently making public tapped phone recordings of former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, including a conversation with Rousseff.

Moro released the recordings hours after Silva was appointed Rousseff’s chief of staff, a move that has been blocked by judges. Silva’s appointment would have made it more difficult for Moro to look into allegations he may have benefited from the Petrobras scheme because Brazilian law requires the Supreme Court to authorize any investigation of Cabinet ministers.

In his written filing to the Supreme Court, Moro offered his “respectful apologies” for making the recordings public. He said he hadn’t intended to “cause polemics or conflicts.” AP

Head of UN-backed govt sails to Libyan capital

T

RIPOLI, Libya—The head of a United Nations-brokered Libyan unity government arrived in the capital by sea on Wednesday to set up a temporary seat of power in a naval base despite threats from competing factions, which prevented him from arriving by air.

Western nations view the unity government as the best hope for ending Libya’s chaos and uniting all factions against an increasingly powerful Islamic State (IS) affiliate, which has seized the central city of Sirte. But factions

within two other rival Libyan governments, one of which is based in Tripoli, are opposed to the UN-backed body.

Fayez Serraj sailed in from neighboring Tunisia aboard a Libyan vessel, according to the unity government’s web site, which denied reports that the officials had been brought in aboard an Italian ship. His arrival sparked fears of renewed clashes in Tripoli, which is controlled by several militias with different loyalties.

Hours after he landed, shops and

restaurants closed, and cars lined up outside petrol stations. Opposing militias set up checkpoints in downtown Tripoli, stopping cars and searching drivers.

Late on Wednesday, witnesses said armed men attacked the offices of alNabaa TV network and took it off the air. The network has been giving air time to Islamists supportive of the Tripoli government.

Serraj arrived with six deputies who are members of the Presidential Council, which was established based on a

UN-mediated deal signed by breakaway groups from the two governments last year. The council formed the new unity government headed by Serraj.

The officials were prevented from flying into Tripoli by a rival Islamistbacked government based in the capital. A third government is based in the east of the vast oil-rich country. Libya has been dominated by an array of militias since the 2011 uprising that toppled and killed longtime dictator Muammar Qaddafi. AP

YONGYANG, North Korea—It’s a demand North Korea has been making for decades: The United States and South Korea must immediately suspend their annual military exercises if there is to be peace on the Korean Peninsula. And, once again, it’s a demand that is falling on deaf ears. Following the North’s recent nuclear test and rocket launch, this year’s exercises are bigger than ever.

In the Koreas, the cycle of tensions is as predictable as the changing of the seasons—they surge every spring, when Washington and Seoul hold their annual Key Resolve and Foal Eagle military exercises. This year’s drills, which are to continue through April, are not only bigger but also reportedly include for the first time training for precision strikes directed at the North’s leadership and Kim Jong Un himself.

In the eyes of North Korea’s ruling regime, that is a bridge too far.

Even before the exercises began, North Korea’s formidable propaganda machine had been churning out articles every day condemning the United States and South Korea in the strongest terms, displaying nuclear bomb and missile mock-ups and warning it is ready at any time to launch a preemptive strike against the presidential residence in South Korea or even a nuclear attack on the US mainland.

Nightly news programs have been dominated by videos of leader Kim watching North Korea’s own drills, replete with large-scale artillery arrays firing barrages from beachfront positions into the ocean and repeated claims that the North now has an Hbomb—which it says it tested in January—and a means of taking the war to the US mainland.

“This isn’t just military training,” Kim Il Sun, a teacher at the Pyongyang Tourism University, said of the US-South Korea military activities going on just south of the Demilitarized Zone as she headed home after work on Wednesday.

“These are war exercises aimed at a nuclear war against our country,” she said. “They are preparing to attack us.”

Gauging the true level of concern among North Koreans as their government whips up anti-US and anti-Seoul feelings is always difficult.

North Korea has been in a state of virtual martial law since its founding and

North Koreans are accustomed to the rise and fall of tensions and the threat—real or perceived—that their country is on the verge of being invaded. Apart from the war-like talk on the news and the more-than-usual number of missile and rocket tests, life in the capital continues to be business as usual, although the whole nation has been mobilized for a 70-day loyalty drive aimed at boosting production ahead of a major political meeting to be headed by Kim in May. There are also strong signals that North Korea doesn’t see the situation as serious enough to go to war over.

Yet. Despite threats it is fully prepared to carry out a preemptive strike and conduct a “sacred war of reunification,” the government has repeatedly insisted it will only attack if provoked. Ultimately, it says, what it really wants is to sit down with the United States to formally end the 1950-1953 Korean War, which concluded in an armistice, not a peace treaty.

Such talk has always been a nonstarter in Washington.

The long-standing US demand has been that North Korea must either give up its nuclear program or verifiably demonstrate it is willing to do so before any serious discussions can begin. North Korea wants talks first since it says the threat of a US invasion is what forced it to develop a nuclear deterrent to begin with.

Washington did suspend an earlier version of the joint military exercises in an attempt to make progress with North Korea.

But that was back in 1992 and there is no sign of that happening again soon, with tensions on the Korean Peninsula worse than usual and the US and South Korea leading efforts to impose new sanctions on the North.

In the meantime, officials here say, the ball is in Washington’s court.

Jon Min Dok, director of the Institute for Disarmament and Peace, part of North Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told an AP Television News crew in a rare interview this week that “as long as the US persists in its moves to stifle our socialist system” North Korea has no intention of backing down.

“We consider that keeping the balance of force by bolstering our nuclear forces is the only way effectively to deter the persistent nuclear threat and war provocations from the US,” he said. AP

Under fire on abortion, Trump courts women

M

ADISON, Wisconsin—Donald Trump is fighting to convince a skeptical Republican Party he can improve his standing among women, even as he takes back an explosive comment about abortion and attacks the credibility of a female reporter, who police say was illegally grabbed by the party front-runner’s campaign manager.

It took Trump’s campaign just hours to backtrack on Wednesday after he said that should abortion become illegal, women who undergo the procedure should face “some sort of punishment.”

The plan sparked an immediate backlash from both sides of the debate, prompting Trump to release two statements clarifying his position. He said only those who perform abortions would be “held legally responsible, not the woman.”

“The woman is a victim in this case, as is the life in her womb,” Trump said.

The flap comes as Trump works to hold off a challenge from chief rival Ted Cruz in Wisconsin’s high-stakes primary on Tuesday.

With a win, Trump’s grasp on his party’s presidential nomination could be unbreakable. A loss would give concerned Republican officials across the nation a realistic hope of wrestling the nomination away from the New York businessman at the Republican Party national convention in July.

Frustrated Republicans are privately grappling with fears about Trump’s impact on their party’s appeal among women and young people, yet few dared criticize the front-runner directly when pressed this week. Their silence underscored the deep uncertainty plaguing the party—particularly its most prominent women—who have few options in dealing with the brash billionaire.

“A nominee who cannot speak to women cannot win,” said New Hampshire party chairman Jennifer Horn, though declining to rebuke Trump by name.

On the Democratic side, front-runner Hillary Clinton addressed Trump’s comments on Twitter: “We can’t let someone with this much contempt for women’s rights anywhere near the White House,” she wrote. AP

The World BusinessMirror

news@businessmirror.com.ph

Friday, April 1, 2016

A7

Europe’s unemployment pushes worker mobility

10.3% Jobless rate in euro area in February

Construction workers repair the roof of a building in Lisbon.

The country’s construction sector collapsed amid the financial crisis, which saw the state take a €78-billion ($87-billion) bailout in 2011. The number of construction workers has more than halved, from 612,000 in 2005 to roughly 277,000. AP/Francisco Seco

T

he euro area’s stubbornly high unemployment rate might be masking a labor market that’s gradually started to become more dynamic.

Joblessness in the currency bloc has been almost continuously above 10 percent for more than six years, and data on Friday are predicted to show it extended that trend in February. Yet, the headline figure en-

compasses wide national variations that may be providing a boost to labor mobility.

Case in point: Maria Cunha. The 22-year-old Portuguese civil-engineering student is about to work

abroad for the first time in her life.

She sees her six-month stint as a waitress in a Cyprus hotel as a route to developing the soft skills, such as English language and teamwork that she needs to improve her longer-term employment chances.

“Finding a job in my field is very difficult in Portugal,” Cunha said.

“With this experience, I think it’ll be easier for me to move to another country.”

The euro-area jobless rate probably held at 10.3 percent last month, according to a Bloomberg survey of economists before the data is published by Eurostat at 11 a.m. in Lux-

embourg on Friday. With the exception of a brief dip to 9.9 percent in April 2011, it’s been at double-digit levels since September 2009.

Not so in Germany. Data due on Thursday is forecast to show unemployment in the region’s largest economy held at a record-low 6.2 percent in March. That’s the rate using the country’s own methodology.

Eurostat puts the figure at 4.3 percent in January.

At the same time, Portugal had a January rate of 12.2 percent and neighboring Spain was at 20.5 percent. Youth unemployment of more than 30 percent in some nations

was called a “tragedy” this month

by European Central Bank President Mario Draghi, who is pumping cash into the economy to try to revive growth and inflation.

While Draghi is struggling to succeed in his inflation push, the jobs market has been moving, if slowly.

Euro-area unemployment has dropped from the record 12.1 percent reached in April 2013. A study published in January by Heiko Peters, an economist at Deutsche Bank AG, showed that mobility within the bloc was about 15 percent higher in 2013 than in precrisis 2007.

Germany is one of the destina-

China’s little emperors lift Aussie homes with parents’ aid

H

an Fantong, an accountant, beat almost 60 other bidders to buy a three-bedroom home in Melbourne in November for A$930,000 ($709,000).

He had an advantage—full funding from his parents back in China.

Han, 32, an Australian permanent resident, bought the house on 688 square meters of land in Ringwood East, about 30 kilometers east of Melbourne’s business district, after a five-month search. His parents sold a 23-year-old two-bedroom apartment in Beijing for 8.1 million yuan ($1.2 million) to help pay for the property, he said by phone.

“It comes as a tradition in China to buy a home for a son to establish a family,” said Han, who lives in the house with his 29-year-old wife Chen Junyang. “Without my parents, it would still be difficult for us to bear the large mortgage loans.”

Han is among scores of buyers, who with the backing of relatives in China, are underpinning a housing market in Australia that’s coming off the boil. More than half the buyers of Chinese origin are supported financially by relatives residing in the world’s second-largest economy, according to McGrath Ltd., Australia’s only listed real estate agency.

The firm’s China desk has assisted in sales worth A$140 million since it was established in September 2013.

Increasing demand

Such demand, whether from permanent residents or overseas buy-

ers, has triggered community concern that locals are being priced out of Australia’s property market. The government has responded to the unease with tighter scrutiny of foreign investment that critics say may deter much-needed offshore capital.

“Chinese buying in Sydney and Melbourne has stepped up from, say, where it was five years ago, but publicity around that has created a perception which has run ahead of reality,” said Shane Oliver, chief economist at AMP Capital Investors Ltd. in Sydney. “The Chinese demand—both from mainland China and Chinese Australians—is propping up the market and boosting construction.”

Leo Yu, 31, an Australian citizen, last year bought a two-bedroom apartment in the inner-Sydney suburb of Surry Hills, known for its cafes and restaurants, with the help of his parents from Qingdao.

They gave him A$73,000, part of it from China, toward a 20-percent deposit on the unit, which cost A$835,000. The rest of the money was through a bank loan. Yu, an accountant, is renting out the property.

“The property can protect my parent’s money from inflation and foreign-exchange risk,” he said. “One day when they come to Australia for family reunion, I can sell the property to repay the deposit so that they can buy their own retirement home.”

Hot market

Purchases by foreigners, many with

a connection to China, helped drive an almost 55-percent jump in home prices across Australia’s capital cities in the past seven years as mortgage rates dropped to five-decade lows. The median Sydney home price reached a record A$800,000 in October, according to research firm CoreLogic Inc. data. It has since fallen after a regulatory clampdown led to a slowdown in mortgages to landlords and the first increase in borrowing costs in five years.

Global financial-market turmoil after China unexpectedly devalued the yuan last August, sending the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index more than 40 percent lower from a June peak, doesn’t seem to have put a dent in demand.

And channels to get money out of China, where top-tier city homes prices have been surging, remain open, even amid a crackdown by Beijing on capital outflows. As Bloomberg reported in November, Chinese nationals can break down cash into small amounts to avoid official scrutiny, and enlist friends, relatives and even employees to send out the money on their behalf.

Capital outflow restrictions are expected to be short term and while they may have some impact on overseas investments, there are still enough buyers in China who can afford overseas properties, G.T. Hu, the CEO of the Australian unit of Country Garden Holdings Co., said in an in-

terview on Thursday.

“It didn’t feel to us that the stock rout in China impacted the market in Sydney,” said Luo Xiaohua, general manager of Shanghai-based property developer Greenland Group’s investment arm in Australia. “We feel the market is stable and the demand is relatively strong.”

The firm, which entered Australia in 2013, has sold A$1 billion worth of apartments across three projects in Sydney, and is working on another two developments in the city and one in Melbourne, Luo said.

Home open

Five out of the seven properties sold earlier this year by First National Real Estate in Lindfield—a suburb about 13 km north of Sydney’s business district—were to buyers of Chinese origin, according to Lan Zhang, a director at the firm.

“Chinese origin buyers who are either permanent residents or citizens are among the biggest group of people who visit our open homes,” she said. The buyers were able to exchange contracts within a few days of agreeing on a deal, suggesting financing was not an issue, she said.

Overseas buyers are largely limited by Australian law to new homes and need approval from the Foreign Investment Review Board. Temporary residents can buy new or existing properties with the board’s approval, but must sell them when they leave the country. Amid community concern, Australia announced

a crackdown on unlawful home purchases last year, and has forced sales of 27 properties, worth more than A$76 million.

Authorities in Canada have also been grappling with the issue. The National Bank of Canada estimates that Chinese buyers made up about one-third of purchases last year in Vancouver, and the government has set aside money to find ways of tracking foreign homebuyers.

House with garden

Demand in Australia is so strong that online real-estate listing firm Domain Group has since late 2013 published a glossy weekly in Chinese, which it distributes at 400 points across Sydney and Melbourne. The site is looking at more ways to connect with Chinese Australians as it expects demand from the community to only increase, according to its chief economist Andrew Wilson.

About one in two buyers who show up at auctions in Ringwood East in Melbourne are Chinese, according to Han, who has no siblings as a result of China’s one-child policy that created a generation of so-called little emperors. He said his home purchase was a “good trade” as prices in the suburb are expected to increase.

“Houses here are still a lot cheaper, larger and better quality than those tiny apartments in Beijing,” he said.

“I would never imagine living in a American-style house with a garden in Beijing.” Bloomberg News

tions of choice. Even so, euro-area citizens headed there have for a long time faced competition from eastern Europe, and that’s not getting any easier with the region’s migrant crisis, which brought 1.1 million people into Germany in 2015 alone.

Immigrant workers from countries, such as Italy and Spain, “will find higher competition both for high-skilled and low-skilled jobs,” Peters said.

Peters notes that labor mobility is a “crucial criteria” of an optimum currency area as it allows the economy better to absorb shocks. The difficulty for the euro area is that, compared with more homogeneous economies, such as the US, national differences are a high hurdle to overcome.

Besides a reluctance to leave family and friends, language is the biggest hurdle to relocation, according to a 2010 European Union survey. Despite the EU’s commitment to the free movement of labor, legal and administrative systems still prove a high bar, along with the difficulty in navigating an unfamiliar job and rental market, and the cultural divide.

Another possible distortion on the horizon is the UK, which with laxer labor laws and English as the native language has proved a popular destination for workers. Should the nation opt in its June 23 referendum to leave the EU, that dynamic could change dramatically.

Taking the long view, Cunha’s attempt to broaden her international job prospects brought her to Movinhand, a start-up that’s trying to lower the barriers to labor mobility within Europe. Launched by two London-based Greeks, the company is focusing on English-language jobs in hospitality and healthcare, with a plan to expand into construction. The key focus—and one which Draghi may cheer—is on the young.

“It is easy for highly-skilled people to move from one country to the other,” said cofounder Andreas Marinopoulos. “Young people at the start of their career often lack the resources and connections to try their luck abroad.” Bloomberg News

Aid reaches only 30 percent of Syrians in besieged areas

U

NITED NATIONS—Desperately needed aid has reached only 30 percent of Syrians living in besieged areas and less than 10 percent in hard-to-reach areas this year, even with the recent ceasefire, the UN humanitarian chief said on Wednesday.

Stephen O’Brien told the Security Council that many of the 4.6 million Syrians in need in these areas can’t be reached because of insecurity and obstruction by combatants.

Since the cessation of hostilities came into effect one month ago, he said there is “a glimmer of hope,” citing far fewer civilians killed and injured and progress on humanitarian access.

But O’Brien stressed that the UN and its partners are still “a long way from the sustained, unconditional and unimpeded access” required under international law and UN resolutions.

Since the beginning of the year, he said, convoys have reached 150,000 people in 11 of the 18 besieged areas in Syria.

But O’Brien said Syria’s government still hasn’t approved aid for three besieged areas “mere minutes’ drive away from UN warehouses in Damascus”— Duma, East Harasta and Daraya.

“The situation is dreadful in these areas, particularly in Daraya, where we continue to receive reports of severe shortages of food, clean water, medicines, electricity and basic commodities, with the food security and nutrition status thought to be disastrous, with even reports of people forced to eat grass,” O’Brien said. AP

A8

Friday, April 1, 2016

The World BusinessMirror

news@businessmirror.com.ph

Syria’s Assad rejects ‘transitional body’

B

EIRUT—Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has proposed a national unity government and rejected a key opposition demand for a transitional ruling body with full powers, in remarks published on Wednesday that could complicate international peace efforts.

In an interview with Russia’s state news agency Sputnik, Assad also said the recapture of the ancient town of Palmyra from the Islamic State (IS) group “is a result of our determination to clean all of Syria from terrorists.”

He said his forces would continue to advance toward the IS de facto capital Raqqa and the far eastern city of Deir el-Zour, which is mostly held by the extremists.

Syrian government forces, aided by allied militias and Russian air strikes, have advanced on a number of fronts in recent months, and in the interview a visibly buoyant Assad showed little interest in acceding to the opposition’s demands.

“First of all, regarding the definition of the ‘transitional period,’ such a definition does not exist,” Assad said in the interview with Sputnik, which published excerpts on its web site.

“The transition period must be under the current Constitution, and we will move on to the new constitution after the Syrian people vote for it,” Assad said.

His comments run counter to demands by the Syrian opposition for a “transitional body with full executive powers,” which major powers agreed on at a Geneva conference in June 2012. That agreement remains the basis of UN-mediated talks, which are slated to resume in April.

“Bashar Assad can say whatever

he wants, but the Geneva Communiqué and Security Council resolutions talk about something else,” said George Sabra, a negotiator for the High Negotiations Committee representing the Syrian opposition at talks in Geneva, which are set to resume next month.

Sabra said a national unity government that dilutes the current Cabinet with members of the opposition was “absolutely out of the question.”

A road map for a transition in Syria outlined in a UN Security Council resolution adopted in December calls for a Syrian-led political process facilitated by the United Nations which would establish “credible, inclusive and nonsectarian governance” within six months and set up a schedule and process for the drafting of a new constitution to be followed by UN-supervised elections.

Assad said a national unity government would be formed by various Syrian political forces— “opposition, independent, the current government and others.”

“Neither the Syrian constitution, nor the constitution of any other country in the world includes anything that is called a transitional body of power. It’s illogical and unconstitutional,” he said.

In excerpts of the interview published on the Syrian presidency’s Facebook page, Assad also dismissed a recent declaration of a federal region by Syria’s main Kurd-

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad gives an interview with the BBC in Damascus, Syria, in February 2015. Sana via AP

ish faction, saying that Syria is not ready for federalism.

He claimed most Kurds want to live in a unified Syria under a central leadership and that if put to a referendum, the choice of federalism would not be approved by a majority of Syrians.

Early on Wednesday Syria’s staterun news agency said Assad sent a message to the UN secretary-general reiterating his readiness to cooperate with all “sincere” efforts to fight terrorism.

Assad also thanked Ban Ki-moon for the UN chief’s statements welcoming the Syrian army’s recapture

of Palmyra and its world-famous archaeological site from IS militants. Sana says Assad also urged the UN chief to support the Syrian government’s efforts in rebuilding Palmyra.

Ban had said on Sunday that the world body is “encouraged and fortunate” that Syrian troops retook Palmyra.

Russia, meanwhile, said it has sent combat engineers to help clear mines in Palmyra. The Defense Ministry said on Wednesday that the sapper units airlifted to Syria have an array of equipment, including state-of-the art robotic de-

vices, to defuse mines at the town’s 2,000-year-old archaeological site.

Russian television stations broadcast the footage of combat engineers boarding a military transport plane at an air base outside Moscow. The team included sniffer dogs.

Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a partial drawdown of Russian warplanes from Syria earlier this month, but he said that Moscow will continue to strike IS and the al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front.

Russia’s navy said it has sent another ship armed with long-range cruise missiles to the Mediterranean.

Russia’s Black Sea Fleet spokes-

man Capt. Vyacheslvav Trukhachev was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying that the Serpukhov missile corvette sailed from Sevastopol on Wednesday to join a group of Russian ships. He said the Serpukhov will replace its sister ship, the Zelyony Dol. The corvettes are equipped with the Kalibr cruise missiles, which Russia tested in combat for the first time in Syria, firing them from surface warships and a submarine.

Russian navy ships have been deployed to the eastern Mediterranean to support the air campaign in Syria. AP

Paris suspect charged with terrorism offenses Pakistani police kill 5, arrest 80

P

ARIS—Paris authorities filed preliminary terrorism charges on Wednesday against a 34-year-old Frenchman for allegedly plotting an imminent attack and operating an explosives arsenal of what prosecutors called “unprecedented scale.”

Paris Prosecutor FranÇois Molins said on Wednesday that the suspect, Reda Kriket, is accused of participating in a terrorist group with plans for at least one attack, possessing and transporting arms and explosives, and holding fake documents, among other charges.

Kriket will stay in custody while magistrates continue investigating the case and determine whether to send him to trial.

Kriket is believed to have traveled to Syria in 2014 and 2015 and made several trips between France and Belgium and the Netherlands, Molins said.

At least three other people are in custody in the case in Belgium and the Netherlands.

Molins did not say whether Kriket’s purported plot was linked to the Islamic State (IS) network behind last week’s attacks in Brussels and last November’s attacks in Paris.

The prosecutor said no target for Kriket’s thwarted attack has been identified, and Kriket has given limited explanation to investigators in his six days in detention.

Two Algerians believed linked to Kriket’s alleged plot are being held in Brussels. The Belgian federal prosecutors’ office said on Wednesday that the men, identified as Abderrahmane A. and Rabah M., will face a hearing on April 7.

Another Frenchman linked to Kriket, Anis Bari, is being held in the Dutch city of Rotterdam, Molins said. Bari is resisting extradi-

tion to France.

Among things found when police searched Kriket’s apartment in the Paris suburb of Argenteuil on Thursday were 500 grams of the explosive TATP, 1.3 kilograms of industrial explosives, several bottles of oxygenated water and acetone, material to make detonators, five automatic rifles, seven cell phones, stolen passports and two computers showing links with jihadi groups, Molins said.

Before the Paris attacks, Kriket and the suspected Paris attacks ringleader were convicted in absentia in the July 2015 trial of Khaled Zerkani, who Belgium’s federal prosecutor described as “the most significant recruiter of jihadi candidates in Belgium.”

Kriket, like Paris attacks mastermind Abdelhamid Abaaoud, was absent for the trial. Also implicated in the network was Najim

Laachraoui, the bombmaker who made the explosives for the November 13 attacks and then used his own creations as a suicide attacker in Brussels on March 22.

Also on Wednesday, French President FranÇois Hollande decided to abandon proposed legislation that would have revoked citizenship for convicted terrorists and strengthened the state of emergency, because differences between the two houses of parliament could not be resolved.

He had submitted the two proposals days after the November 13 attacks in Paris that left 130 people dead.

The country’s state of emergency, swiftly declared by the government on the night of the attacks, was recently extended to May 26. It extends some police powers of search and arrest and limits public gatherings, among other changes. AP

Obama commutes 61 prisoners’ sentences, dines with ex-convicts Australia warns vs travel

W

ASHINGTON—President Barack Obama commuted the sentences of 61 federal prisoners on Wednesday and went to lunch with seven former inmates who were released after having their sentences shortened—examples, Obama said, of the importance of second chances.

The president’s latest commutations and his impromptu meeting with former drug offenders in Washington were meant to draw attention to his proposal to overhaul the US criminal justice system and reduce mandatory punishments for non-violent criminals. That effort has stalled as Congress has focused on a Supreme Court vacancy and the 2016 elections.

“You’ve got people sitting around

this table who are now attorneys themselves,” Obama said of his lunch companions. “This is an example of what we mean when we talk about second chances.”

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters on Wednesday that he remains “cautiously optimistic” that an overhaul can still happen during Obama’s presidency.

Obama has shortened the sentences of 248 people during his presidency, mostly nonviolent drug offenders—more than the previous six presidents combined, according to the White House. More than 90 of those were life sentences, the White House said.

Obama said at a drug-abuse summit Tuesday in Atlanta that the US

should treat drug addiction as a disease instead of a crime, and emphasize treatment over incarceration for nonviolent drug offenses.

“For too long we’ve seen the problem of drug-abuse generally in our society through the lens of the criminal justice system,” Obama said in Atlanta.

The seven former prisoners who attended the lunch with Obama at Busboys & Poets restaurant in Washington included some whose sentences were commuted by presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. The restaurant’s owner, Andy Shallal, advocated for a Washington law that forbids most employers from asking job applicants whether they have been arrested. Bloomberg News/TNS

to Ankara and Istanbul

C

ANBERRA, Australia—The Australian government on Thursday warned its citizens against traveling to the Turkish cities of Ankara and Istanbul because of the terrorist threat.

The heightened travel warnings followed the deaths of more than 80 people in four separate suicide bombings in the two cities this year, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said.

Australians are advised to “reconsider your need to travel” to the cities—the secondhighest danger warning on a four-tier scale.

“Terrorist groups continue to threaten further attacks, including targeting tourists and westerners,” Bishop said in a statement.

Provinces of Batman, Bingol, Bitlis, Gaziantep, Hakkari, Hatay, Kilis, Mardin, Sanliurfa, Siirt, Sirnak, Tunceli and Van had previously carried the same travel warning. AP

M

UMBAI, India—Pakistani counterterrorism police killed at least five people on Wednesday and arrested scores more in what it described as an intensified crackdown following a deadly suicide bombing at a public park in the eastern city of Lahore.

Police in Punjab province raided a house in Raiwind, outside Lahore, and killed five suspected militants in a shootout, Pakistani media reported. Nearly 80 people were arrested in total from two other districts in Punjab, Pakistani news channel Geo News reported.

Yet, the early days of Pakistan’s probe into Sunday’s bombing at the Gulshan-eIqbal park in Lahore, which left 72 people dead, including at least 25 children, have renewed criticism of the government’s counterterrorism policies.

Police and intelligence agencies in Punjab rounded up at least 5,221 suspects in the 24 hours after the attack and had released 5,005 by late Tuesday, the provincial law minister, Rana Sanaullah, told reporters in Lahore. At least 1,000 of those arrested were part of a list of people believed to be involved in antistate activities or hate speech.

The arrests and subsequent releases gave the appearance of a government “groping in the dark” to demonstrate its resolve following the latest militant attack against civilians, according to a report Wednesday in Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper.

“This is an exercise these security agencies carry out after every attack of this nature,” said Saifullah Mehsud, executive director of the Fata Research Center, which studies militant activity in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

“This is more for the consumption of the public,” Mehsud said in an interview.

“They just round up these guys, and after a few days, when the furor dies down, they release them for lack of evidence. I don’t see it as any meaningful action.”

Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a Pakistani Taliban splinter group that claimed responsibility for the bombing, has carried out several

high-profile attacks in recent years. Investigators in Punjab said they found evidence at the blast site that matched evidence collected from three other attacks over the past year and a half, including two suicide attacks on churches in Youhanabad last year that killed at least 15 people.

The group said it carried out the park bombing to target Christians celebrating Easter Sunday. Pakistan, an overwhelmingly Muslim nation of 182 million people, has a small Christian minority. At least 14 of the victims at the park were Christians, officials have said.

One of several splinter groups that have broken with the Pakistani Taliban in recent years, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar has quickly established itself as one of the most dangerous, experts said.

Pakistan has long struggled to rein in militants, in part because elements of the Pakistani security establishment have in the past nurtured extremist groups that have carried out attacks in neighboring India and Afghanistan. Militant groups that target the Pakistani state have taken advantage of the havens, experts said.

A nearly two-year-long Pakistani army offensive against militant hideouts in the tribal areas saw a sharp reduction in terrorist attacks inside Pakistan in 2015. Since 2003, more than 21,000 Pakistani civilians have been killed in terrorist violence, according to the South Asia Terrorism Portal, which tracks attacks.

Jamaat-ul-Ahrar fighters crossed the border from the tribal belt into Afghanistan’s Kunar province, where they appear to be unhindered by an Afghan government that is struggling to contain its own Taliban insurgency, Mehsud said.

“It’s pretty obvious that they are being funded very well, whoever is funding them,” Mehsud said. “It’s quite obvious that in Kunar they have a safe haven and that Afghan forces are not doing anything about it. And their network within Pakistan remains intact—the Pakistani security apparatus has failed to break that network. Los Angeles Times/TNS

BusinessMirror

World The

A9 | Friday, April 1, 2016 • Editor: Lyn Resurreccion

Flowers of spring

Women take a selfie with blooming cherry blossoms at Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden in Tokyo. Visitors enjoy a total of 1,100 cherry trees of 65 different types that start to bloom from February until the end of April at the park. An official from the Japan Meteorological Agency checked the buds on the agency’s benchmark cherry tree before confirming it started to bloom on March 21, five days earlier than average and two days earlier than last year. The blossoms signal the arrival of spring and blooming trees are a popular attraction for visitors. AP/Shizuo Kambayashi

Leaders tackling threat of nuclear terrorism after attacks in Brussels

W

ASHINGTON—Still reeling from attacks in Brussels and Paris, world leaders are wrestling this week with the chilling prospect of the Islamic State (IS) group or other extremists unleashing a nuclear attack on a major Western city.

Preventing terrorists from obtaining nuclear materials is the central focus as President Barack Obama hosts leaders from roughly 50 countries for a nuclear-security summit starting on Thursday. Despite three previous summits and six years of Obama’s prodding, security officials warn that the ingredients for a nuclear device or a “dirty bomb” are alarmingly insecure.

“We know that terrorist organizations have the desire to get access to these raw materials and to have a nuclear device,” said Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security adviser. Still, the White House said there was no indication of an imminent plot.

Decades after the Cold War, the threat of a nuclear war between superpowers has given way to growing concerns about non-state actors, including IS and al-Qaeda offshoots operating in North Africa and in Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Although the US and its allies still worry about North Korea, Obama believes the threat posed by Iran has subsided due to the nuclear deal, leaving extremist groups among the likeliest perpetrators.

The havoc, such an attack could wreak in an urban area like New York or London, is concerning

2,000 mT Highly enriched uranium and separated plutonium that could be turned into a nuclear bomb if stolen or diverted enough that leaders scheduled a special session on the threat during the two-day summit. US officials said the leaders would discuss a hypothetical scenario about a chain of events that could lead to nuclear terrorism.

Those concerns have taken on heightened significant following the March 22 attacks at a Brussels airport and subway station. Last year authorities searching the apartment of two brothers linked to earlier attacks in Paris found video of a senior official at a Belgian nuclear-waste facility. The brothers were part of the IS cell that went on to strike Brussels; both died in the attacks.

On the summit’s sidelines, Obama planned to meet with the leaders of China, South Korea and Japan, who all share US concerns about North Korea’s nuclear program.

Yet, other key players will be

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, accompanied by his wife Emine, walks downstairs from a plane upon his arrival at Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, on Tuesday. Erdogan is in Washington to attend the Nuclear Security Summit. AP/Jose Luis Magana

missing. Russian President Vladimir Putin refused to attend, as Moscow scoffed at what it deemed US efforts to take control of the process.

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif canceled his trip following an Easter bombing that killed 72 people.

Some 2,000 metric tons of highly enriched uranium and separated plutonium being used in civilian or military programs could be turned into a nuclear bomb if stolen or diverted, the White House said. And fewer than half of the countries participating in the summit have even agreed to secure their sources of radiological material, needed for a dirty bomb.

“The policies are moving in the right direction,” said Joe Cirincione, who runs the nuclear-security group Ploughshares Fund. “But when you’re fleeing a forest fire, it’s not just a question of direction, it’s

a question of speed.”

Nuclear-security experts say there are four potential scenarios for a nuclear-related attack by an extremist group. Some are more likely than others.

The most devastating but improbable scenario involves a group stealing a fully functional bomb from a nuclear-armed country.

Most nuclear experts point to Pakistan as the likeliest source, though that would require cooperation with someone on the inside of Pakistan’s military.

Easier to pull off would be for IS or another group to obtain fissile material like highly enriched uranium, then turn it into a crude nuclear device delivered by truck or ship.

A third possibility is that extremists could bomb an existing nuclear facility, such as the Belgian waste plant, spreading highly radioactive

material over a wide area.

The most likely scenario that security experts fear is that a group could get ahold of radioactive material, such as cesium or cobalt, for a dirty bomb that could be carried in a suitcase. Those materials are widely used in industrial, academic and hospital settings, with no consistent security standards across the globe.

Last year an Associated Press investigation revealed multiple attempts by black market smugglers to sell radioactive material to Middle East extremists.

Unlike a nuclear bomb, the only people killed instantly by a “dirty bomb” would be those close to the blast site. But the blast could spread cancer-causing substances over a vast area, triggering panic and evacuations.

“Even if it is small, such an incident would create such havoc in the world that you have to take it quite seriously,” said former Ambassador Wendy Sherman, who spearheaded US nuclear negotiations with Iran and North Korea before joining the Albright Stonebridge Group.

Detonated in a major city, a dirty bomb could cause tens of billions of dollars in economic damage, said Andrew Bieniawski, who studies materials security at the Nuclear Threat Initiative. People and businesses would have to be relocated—potentially for years—while the contamination is cleaned up.

Few would be inclined to ever go back, a reality on display in Chernobyl, Ukraine decades after the 1986 accident.

Reducing the threat of nuclear terrorism has been a persistent theme for Obama, who won the Nobel Peace Prize after emphasizing nuclear disarmament. Four months into his presidency, Obama warned in a much-cited speech in Prague that nuclear weapons were “the most dangerous legacy of the Cold War.” AP

South Korea’s Constitutional Court upholds tough anti-prostitution laws

S

EOUL, South Korea—South Korea’s Constitutional Court on Thursday upheld laws that toughened punishment on prostitutes, pimps and their clients.

The 2004 legislation drove thousands of sex workers in traditional redlight zones out of business in South Korea, but prostitution has still thrived in the shadows. Sex workers have occasionally held rallies calling for the laws’ abolishment.

The Constitutional Court decided to uphold a provision that makes it a criminal offense to voluntarily sell or buy sex, punishable by up to a year in prison or a fine of 3 million won ($2,600).

The ruling was made in response to a complaint by a female sex worker, who argued that people have the right to choose their occupation.

A court statement said the government could deny such individual rights to prevent

exploitation and protect moral values.

South Korea has always banned prostitution, but the laws were rarely enforced and red-light districts were largely tolerated before 2004.

The court said that decriminalizing prostitution would inspire an explosive growth in sex trade, threaten the stability of South Korea’s society and economy and inspire disorderly sexual behavior.

Critics of the anti-prostitution laws say

they limit women’s freedom over their bodies. They also say that tougher punishment has made sex work more dangerous for women by creating a thriving underground industry in which they sell sex at bars, apartment rooms and through social media and dating apps, which often leaves them more vulnerable to abusive customers and pimps.

Supporters of the laws say decriminalizing prostitution would benefit exploiters

more than sex workers. They argue prostitution is inherently violent and exploitative for women, especially in a country like South Korea, where women suffer from one of the harshest inequalities among developed nations and are often economically pressured into prostitution.

Male prostitution and homosexuality largely remain taboo subjects in conservative South Korea and are rarely discussed in public. AP

Let in more Syrian refugees, U.N. chief urges nations

P

ARIS—UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged governments around the world on Wednesday to let in more people from Syria, as the global body tries to find new homes for almost half a million people who have fled the war-torn country.

Ban’s appeal came as Europe is striving to halt the unchecked flow of migrants across the Mediterranean and through the continent’s porous borders.

Police evacuated nearly 1,000 migrants from a makeshift camp near a Paris subway station on Wednesday, and hundreds of people sought to cross the seas from Turkey to Greece despite European efforts to slow down the arrivals.

The Paris operation was peaceful and authorities offered the migrants temporary lodging and help applying for asylum, France’s Interior Ministry said. They reportedly included people from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan and Afghanistan who had been living beneath elevated train tracks for several weeks.

The Paris transit authority closed the Stalingrad metro station during the operation. The area has seen multiple migrant camps in recent years.

“The street should not be a refuge” for people fleeing persecution, the ministry said.

France has not seen nearly as many Syrian refugees or other migrants over the past year as Germany, but has experienced tensions around the northern port of Calais, where migrants converge in hopes of crossing into Britain.

The flow of migrants to the Greek islands, meanwhile, seems to be on the rise again as weather warms.

Figures released by the Greek government showed 766 people reached the islands of Lesbos, Samos, Chios and Kos in the 24 hours until Wednesday morning.

The number is a roughly a threefold jump compared with arrivals in previous days.

In Turkey the coast guard said it rescued dozens of mostly Syrian migrants as they tried to reach Greece in an inflatable dinghy. Off the coast of Libya, a German navy vessel on Tuesday picked up scores of people trying to cross the Mediterranean from North Africa to Italy.

A new European Union-Turkey agreement comes into effect next week to curb the flow of migrants.

The United Nations has urged countries to ensure that people fleeing war and persecution can still find refuge abroad.

Over the next three years, the UN refugee agency wants to resettle onetenth of the 4.8 million Syrian refugees who are crowded into countries in the surrounding region.

To date, 179,000 places have been pledged, according to Filippo Grandi, the UN high commissioner for refugees.

Speaking at a one-day conference in Geneva, UN chief Ban called on countries to “counter fear-mongering” about refugees that has pressured governments into clamping down on migration routes. AP

A10 Friday, April 1, 2016 • Editor: Angel R. Calso

Opinion BusinessMirror

editorial

Subtle threats from Muslim Mindanao

R

egardless of the diverse views on the best way to achieve a lasting peace in the Muslim Mindanao region, the Bangsamoro basic law (BBL) was inherently flawed from the beginning. The process was flawed in that negotiations did not include all stakeholders. Even a glance at the participants showed an unmistakable bias to write a framework and law designed to meet the desires of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and its allies.

The only consideration for the rest of the Philippines and the people seemed to be stopping the long war by placating the armed insurgents on one side.

There did not seem to be any consideration about how the provisions of the BBL might negatively affect other regions of the country, and that potentially unconstitutional advantages would be given to those areas under the BBL. Legitimate arguments against the BBL in the Senate were characterized as “anti-peace” and “anti-Muslim,” which are not true. The senators were elected to consider what is in the best interests of the country as a whole, and not only the desires of one group. While the economic needs of the Muslim Mindanao region must be properly and comprehensively addressed, this cannot be done by sacrificing even a portion of the national sovereignty.

Now come comments that are disturbing and may even be counterproductive to the goal of a sustainable peace with long-term economic benefits.

Naguib Sinarimbo, former executive secretary during the reign of Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao Gov. Ansaruddin Adiong, recently offered some not-so-subtle threats to the rest of the Philippines. He said, “I hope the people are mindful of the danger posed by these deadly combinations. Frustration over the failure of government to deliver on its obligation to pass the Bangsamoro basic law [in Congress]; the coming elections and its inherent challenges; the prolonged drought and its devastating effects on agricultural lands and farmers; and the violent extremism, which will find its way into this country ultimately.”

First, Congress did not and does not have an “obligation” to pass the BBL. It does have an obligation to create a law that serves all the people. If the Moro people thought there was an obligation to pass the BBL, that is the sole fault of the government members appointed to the Peace Panel.

The national elections in May is part of the scheduled democratic process that all people—not just Muslim Mindanao—have to live with. The drought is affecting all agricultural and all regions in the Philippines, and is being addressed by the government as well as possible. Muslim Mindanao is not being singled out so this is not an issue. To say that the rejection of the BBL, as it stands, will encourage violent extremism to find its way into the Philippines may not be a subtle threat but a direct threat. Further, that attitude is one of the reasons there was great hesitation about the BBL in the first place.

The rest of the country does not trust the current leadership of the Bangsamoro region to protect the interests of the Philippines as a sovereign country. These kinds of statements and threats do nothing to advance the needs of Muslim Mindanao.

Since 2005

BusinessMirror A broader look at today’s business ✝ Ambassador Antonio L. Cabangon Chua Founder

Publisher Editor in Chief Managing Editor Associate Editor News Editor City & Assignments Editor Senior Editors

T. Anthony C. Cabangon Jun B. Vallecera Max V. de Leon Jennifer A. Ng Dionisio L. Pelayo Vittorio V. Vitug Lorenzo M. Lomibao Jr., Gerard S. Ramos Lyn B. Resurreccion, Efleda P. Campos

Online Editor Social Media Editor

Ruben M. Cruz Jr. Angel R. Calso

Creative Director Chief Photographer

Eduardo A. Davad Nonilon G. Reyes

Chairman of the Board & Ombudsman President VP-Finance VP-Corporate Affairs VP Advertising Sales Advertising Sales Manager Group Circulation Manager

Judge Pedro T. Santiago (Ret.) Benjamin V. Ramos Adebelo D. Gasmin Frederick M. Alegre Marvin Nisperos Estigoy Aldwin Maralit Tolosa Dante S. Castro

BusinessMirror is published daily by the Philippine Business Daily Mirror

HOM

Publishing, Inc., with offices on the 3rd floor of Dominga Building III 2113 Chino Roces Avenue corner De La Rosa Street, Makati City, Philippines.

Tel. Nos. (Editorial) 817-9467; 813-0725. Fax line: 813-7025.

(Advertising Sales) 893-2019; 817-1351, 817-2807.

(Circulation) 893-1662; 814-0134 to 36. E-mail: news@businessmirror.com.ph.

www.businessmirror.com.ph

regional offices n DXQR -93dot5 HOME RADIO CAGAYAN DE ORO E-MAIL ADDRESS: homecdo@yahoo.com ADDRESS: Archbishop Hayes corner Velez Street, Cagayan de Oro City CONTACT NOs.: (088) 227-2104/ 857-9350/ 0922-811-3997 n DYQC -106dot7 HOME RADIO CEBU E-MAIL ADDRESS: homecebu@yahoo.com ADDRESS: Ground Floor, Fortune Life Building, Jones Avenue, Cebu City CONTACT NOs.: (032) 253-2973/ 234-4252/ 416-1067/ 0922-811-3994 n DWQT -89dot3 HOME RADIO DAGUPAN E-MAIL ADDRESS: homeradiodagupan@ yahoo.com ADDRESS: 4th Floor, Orchids Hotel Building,

Rizal Street, Dagupan City CONTACT NOs.: (075) 522-8209/ 515-4663/ 0922-811-4001 n DXQM – 98dot7 HOME RADIO DAVAO E-MAIL ADDRESS: home98dot7@gmail.com ADDRESS: 4D 3rd Floor, ATU Plaza, Duterte Street, Davao City CONTACT NOs.: (082) 222-2337/ 221-7537/ 0922-811-3996 n DXQS -98dot3 HOME RADIO GENERAL SANTOS E-MAIL ADDRESS: homegensan@yahoo.com ADDRESS: 2nd Floor, Penamante Clinic Tiongson Street, General Santos City CONTACT NO.: 0922-811-3998 n DYQN -89dot5 HOME RADIO ILOILO E-MAIL ADDRESS: homeiloilo@yahoo.com

ADDRESS: 3rd Floor, Eternal Plans Building, Ortiz Street, Iloilo City CONTACT NOs.: (033) 337-2698/ 508-8102/ 0922-811-3995 n DWQA -92dot3 HOME RADIO LEGAZPI E-MAIL ADDRESS: homeradiolegazpi@ yahoo.com ADDRESS: 4th Floor, Fortune Building, Rizal Street, Brgy. Pigcale, Legazpi City CONTACT NOs.: (052) 480-4858/ 820-6880/ 0922-811-3992 n DWQJ -95dot1 HOME RADIO NAGA E-MAIL ADDRESS: homenaga@yahoo.com ADDRESS: Eternal Garden Compound, Balatas Road, Naga City CONTACT NOs.: (054) 473-3818/ 811-2951/ 0922-811-3993

Printed by brown madonna Press, Inc.–San Valley Drive KM-15, South Superhighway, Parañaque, Metro Manila

Vanity James Jimenez

spox

I

t was almost midnight when I got the first notification about what had happened to the official web site of the Commission on Elections (Comelec). By then, the site had already been down since 10:30 p.m. Considering the lateness of the hour, I asked one of the people who reported the hacking to me how it happened that they were trying to browse the web site at such a weird time. “Do you guys check web sites randomly to see which ones have been hacked?”

I asked jokingly. In all seriousness, the reply came back: “I was checking to verify my voting status. I want to vote in May.”

I immediately set up an emergency e-mail address to accommodate voting status verification requests. Minutes after I’d announced the address over Twitter, the inbox started pinging. By 3:15 a.m., the web site was back up but the databases used for the online precinct finder—the web application used to verify voter status— were still down. The informationtechnology (IT) guys over at the Comelec were still hunting down

the malicious codes that have been injected into the web site. And so the inbox of the emergency e-mail address kept pinging.

The irony of it is that the people responsible for defacing the Comelec web site claimed to have done so in the interest of the electorate. “The heroic join us,” they crow. It hardly seems heroic to me, to be the cause of so much inconvenience to so many people—some of whom needed to know their precinct assignments

The irony of it is that the people responsible for defacing the Comelec web site claimed to have done so in the interest of the electorate. “The heroic join us,” they crow. It hardly seems heroic to me, to be the cause of so much inconvenience to so many people—some of whom needed to know their precinct assignments for the purpose of applying for local absentee voting. for the purpose of applying for local absentee voting. That’s where, because you’re doing election duty on election day, you can’t vote where you’re supposed to, so you apply for the privilege of voting ahead of everybody else. That way, doing election work won’t have to mean giving up your right to vote. But I don’t suppose those talented people who effectively denied everybody else access to the web site considered that at all.

I suppose they were too focused on parroting the call of some quarters to “enable the security features” of the vote counting machines. This,

too, is ironic, considering that these features were already active—some, in fact, were never disabled at all.

And those that were disabled were actually turned off for very good reasons, which, although those justifications might seem impenetrable to some, you’d expect someone with more than a passing understanding of how IT works would understand.

Hackers, for instance.

Even more disappointing, however, than this defacement of the Comelec web site is how many people reacted to the stunt. Instead of disapproving of it as an ill-timed and ultimately futile gimmick, some have taken to gleefully predicting the direst of outcomes for the coming elections, cheerfully warning of the loss of public confidence in the system, stopping just short of screaming “We told you so!”

Back in 2010, this kind of schadenfreude could have been easily attributed to a fear of the unknown.

But after two successful automated elections? I fear all this, is vanity.

James Arthur B. Jimenez is director of the Commission on Elections’s Education and Information Department.

Opinion BusinessMirror

opinion@businessmirror.com.ph

Friday, April 1, 2016 A11

World Bank reinvents tainted aid program for Ethiopia

O

By Elizabeth Fraser | Inter Press Service

AKLAND—I was taught that responsibility means admitting your mistakes and being accountable when you make a mistake. I still believe this to be true for individuals and institutions. So when a powerful group, like the World Bank, makes a mistake, I expect it to be accountable for its wrong-doing, and to do everything possible to make sure those mistakes don’t happen again.

Unfortunately, this couldn’t be farther from reality.

The issue I’m referring to is last year’s launch of the World Bank’s “new” program in Ethiopia, Enhancing Shared Prosperity through Equitable Services (ESPES). On the surface, ESPES looks reasonable. Its main goal is to send money to locallevel authorities across the country to make sure all citizens have access to basic services like water, roads, education, health care and more. But once you start peeling the layers back, the program stops looking so rosy.

The biggest issue is that ESPES is replacing the almost decadelong, World Bank-funded Promoting Basic Services (PBS) program. PBS started in 2006 with almost identical goals to the ESPES program. The snag is that for years, there were extremely serious allegations that PBS had become entwined with the Ethiopian Government’s program, “villagization,” which has forcibly relocated indigenous communities and made their land available for large-scale land grabs.

In 2012 members of the Anuak community—an indigenous group that has borne the brunt of these forced relocations and abuses— filed a formal complaint with the World Bank’s independent Inspection Panel. In early 2015 the Panel released its final report and it was scathing: the Bank’s finances couldn’t be properly tracked, important safeguards had not been applied, and there was poor monitoring and oversight.

The Panel shied away from making rulings about whether the Bank should be responsible for the human-rights abuses that the Anuak faced—they claimed it was outside of the scope of their investigation, a point worthy of analysis itself—but they did rule that the PBS program had become enmeshed with the villagization program, with far-reaching consequences.

When the Panel report came out, one expected the Bank to admit that mistakes had been made and to take every possible action to both address the situation and ensure that it never happens again. But the Bank did no such thing. Instead, they quietly ended the PBS program early, and a few months later announced a new program—which will run until 2019, with 600 million dollars behind it—called ESPES. ESPES looks almost identical to PBS, and most shockingly takes very few of the hard recommendations

from the Inspection Panel report into consideration. Two aspects of the program are particularly appalling. First, instead of applying important social safeguards to the new program, ESPES uses Ethiopia’s own institutions to address possible social and environmental harm. A cornerstone for addressing social harm is increased community engagement and a “Grievance Redress Mechanism” (GRM).

This system relies on marginalized communities to self-report when things go wrong. It’s ludicrous in any situation to put the onus on the marginalized to report social harm, but it’s even more ridiculous in a country like Ethiopia, where the government routinely arrests critics of its government as terrorists. To add fuel to the fire, the Bank’s own internal assessment of the GRM admitted that there is a lack of confidence in the GRM with many vulnerable groups feeling uncomfortable using it, demonstrating that they knowingly launched this mechanisms despite its serious weaknesses.

Second, in order to ensure that ESPES doesn’t get mixed up with problematic programs of the Ethiopian government in the future, the Bank has proposed ongoing highlevel dialogues with government officials. The chance that government officials—the masterminds of the villagization program who have pinned their country’s development on leasing indigenous land to largescale investors—will accurately and appropriately have—these kinds of conversations with the Bank is preposterous.

If this isn’t enough to get riled up, we turn now to the United States. As the biggest donor to the World Bank, the US Treasury gets to vote on World Bank projects like ESPES. Congress has taken a vital stand on the issue of forced relocations in Ethiopia, including language in numerous Appropriations Bills forbidding the Treasury to vote in favor of World Bank programs that could—directly or indirectly—lead to forced evictions in Ethiopia. Yet, somehow, despite these rulings, the US Treasury voted in support of ESPES. How can the US and the World Bank get away with this? It’s hard to know whether these institutions are completely dysfunctional or morally bankrupt. Either way, they both appear to be extremely irresponsible, and need to finally wake up or be accountable for their mistakes.

The death of debate Tito Genova Valiente

annotations

B

eware of products with fake labels. One product is called presidential debate. The Commission on Elections and some media networks are behind the packaging; the candidates are responsible for the content.

Presidential debates are quite new in the country. We have always relied on campaign sorties, which are full of menace and malice, as candidates engage in the most furious and childish of mudslinging. The problem is children throw real mud, while candidates can throw bombs at each other, as history has proven in the past.

Presidential debates assume many things. One of these is that there are rules. As with any thing that involves the intellect, debates

are seen as running on manners than on mayhem.

The nation sat straight when the series of presidential debates were held. Now, we are talking.

I sat through the one in Cebu.

If presidential debates are the only artefacts that will be excavated by archaeologists in the future, what would they say about our society?

That debate in Cebu started late and there were many speculations. Before the battle began, the candidates were humoring

Yes, Turkey belongs in Nato

T

urkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan used to speak with US President Barack Obama more than any other foreign leader. Now he can’t even make it onto Obama’s official schedule when he visits Washington, D.C. Can this marriage be saved?

By all accounts, their relationship is difficult. But if the question is broadened to ask whether Turkey belongs in the US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato), then the answer is easy: Of course it does.

Not everyone agrees. Turkey’s policies on the Kurds, Syria and Islamic State are out of sync with those

of the United States and many Nato allies, they point out, while Erdogan’s record on democracy and free speech makes the US and Europe increasingly uncomfortable.

But Nato is a military alliance, in which common values are not as necessary as a common goal.

That goal is security. Controlling access from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean remains as strategically important as it was during the Cold War, as does Turkey’s traditional role as a counterweight to Russian influence in the region.

And as difficult as it is for Europe to stop the flow of refugees from

The 2 metrics to watch in the jobs report Mohamed A. El-Erian

BLOOMBERG VIEW

N

ot so long ago the number of jobs created in the prior month was considered the single most important piece of information in the rich set of employment data released by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics on the first Friday of every month.

More recently the focus shifted to wage growth as it became apparent that the economy had recovered its employment mojo.

Now both these metrics should take a backseat to the measure of labor-force participation and the related employment-population ratio.

After steadily increasing over several decades, these two measures

of the size of the US labor market plunged as a result of the recession induced by the 2008 global financial crisis. As late as last year both metrics remained at or near their multidecade lows.

themselves. Sorely missed was Miriam Defensor-Santiago who always gave us this impression she was born to debate.

The result was amusing and amazing. Luchi Cruz-Valdes, the moderator, could not bring the show to any level of moderation. The debaters were going beyond the assigned seconds and minutes, Comments were made instead of questions, thus, the short 30-second limit for inquiry became spaces for sound bites that were biting and poisoned. At a certain point, the set that belonged to Grace Poe and Mar Roxas turned insane, as Poe would not stop even when her time had elapsed. The moderator who, by this time had lost command of that vaulting ship of ranting individuals, succumbed to the temptation of extension. That furtive act may have sat well with the presidential aspirants, but only revealed one fact: never allow politicians to run a TV program.

One very interesting thing that came out of the presidential debate

The civilian labor force participation rate reached a recent historic low of 62.4 percent in September 2015, a full seven years after the eruption of global financial and economic instability. This compares to 66.2 percent at the beginning of 2008. In the most recent data, contained in the jobs report for February released a month ago, it stood at 62.9 percent.

Meanwhile, the employmentpopulation ratio (for those 16 and over) fell from 62.9 percent at the beginning of 2008 to a recent historical low of 58.2 percent in January 2011. It has recovered somewhat, but, at 59.8 percent in February of this year, it also is well short of where it was and could be.

Economists have not come to broad agreement about the causes of these movements. Some favor

structural factors, such as demographics and the impact of technological innovations. Others believe that more cyclical forces, including insufficient aggregate demand, have played a determining role.

It is hard to see analytical breakthroughs that would resolve this important debate any time soon. As a result, the data itself will be critical, including whether the small bounce in both metrics gains momentum.

The potential implications of how this question is answered extend well beyond the future economic well-being of the US and the related social and political dimensions. They also speak to the challenging policy assessment facing the Federal Reserve (the Fed)—namely, the likely mix of “benefits, costs and risks” as the central bank continues to use

was how these individuals could not follow instruction.

As for the content of the debate, candidates who stuck to facts were dull. In fact, the debate proved what I was afraid of, that debates are boring.

In other civilizations, caustic wit can either amuse or teach. Here, jeering or kantyaw works.

Nelson Mandela once described a good leader as one who “can engage in a debate frankly and thoroughly, knowing that at the end he and the other side must be closer, and, thus, emerge stronger.” The late African leader continued by saying: “You don’t have that idea when you are arrogant, superficial and uninformed.”

As the debate was coming to an end, I got this text from someone asking: Is it moral to wish that lightning strike all these debaters dead?

I did not respond. I just know one thing: debate has just died in the Philippines.

E-mail: titovaliente@yahoo.com.

Syria with Turkey’s cooperation, it would be impossible without it. Meanwhile, Greece and Turkey still have serious territorial claims against each other, which their common Nato membership helps to keep in check.

In terms of democratic values, Turkey’s record has been spotty.

There were coups in 1960, 1971 and 1980. A war against Kurdish militants, in which tens of thousands have been killed or executed, went on for decades and was rekindled last year. (In the 1980s, Turkey denied the very existence of a Kurdish ethnicity.) At various times, civil

rights have been sharply curtailed.

Throughout all this, Turkey retained its Nato membership.

Obama is right not to validate Erdogan’s current policies by officially meeting with him this week, and the US and Europe can and should do more to protect Turkey’s civic and democratic institutions. In fact, membership in organizations such as Nato and the Council of Europe offer the West tools to influence Turkey’s direction.

Turkey has been a member of Nato since 1952. Its membership remains as necessary—and awkward—as ever. Bloomberg editorial

unconventional monetary policy to stimulate the economy. Moreover, market participants will be watching closely, given their dependency on Fed support and its impact on the size, sign and volatility of future investment portfolio returns.

In a perfect world, we would observe a continued steady rise in both labor-force participation and the employment-population ratio.

This would strengthen the engines of economic growth and prosperity. It would enable the Fed to continue to support the economy in the short-term in a manner that allows more inclusive growth and lowers the probability of an inflation surprise that would force it to hit the brakes in a potentially disruptive manner; and it would make it easier to carry out an orderly normaliza-

tion of monetary policy. Such data developments also could deliver a necessary component of the scenario that would help validate existing stock-market prices, while strengthening the foundation that would allow them to go higher over time in a sustainable fashion.

Of course, these issues will not be answered only by the employment report for March that will be released on Friday. A series of additional monthly data observations will be needed, as was the case for determining—over the past three years—that the US economy had re-established its precrisis standing as one of the most powerful generators of new jobs in the global economy. But these two metrics should move to the forefront of the reporting and assessment of the monthly jobs report.

Now in the Philippines BusinessMirror

Turning Points: Global Agenda 2016 is a year-end package of opinion pieces and features, photos and cartoons covering events and trends in 2015 that will influence 2016 and beyond.

OUT NOW

To To order, order,e-mail e-mailususatat bmturningpoints@businessmirror.com.ph bmturningpoints@businessmirror.com.ph or call 893-1662, 814-0134 to 36 Available at all National Book Store or call 893-1662, 814-0134 to 36 and Fully Booked branches