With over 30,000 stores globally, Starbucks is now the world’s largest “coffee” store chain. And while it is present in over 70 countries, in reality, however, only four big markets account for more than half of those stores: the United States, China, Japan, and Canada. In the Philippines, it reportedly has around 250 stores nationwide.

Shopee is a Singaporean e-commerce platform under the Sea Group, which was founded in 2009 by Forrest Li. Shopee was first launched in Singapore in 2015, and has since expanded its reach to Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan, Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines. In May this year, ASEAN UP ranked Shopee Philippines as second among the Top 10 e-commerce sites in the Philippines, with monthly traffic estimated at 14,400,000.

MONEY SENT HOME by overseas Filipino workers (OFW) grew for the second straight month in August -- by a slower pace than in July, although it was still a turnaround from the year-ago slump -- according to data the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) released on Tuesday.

THE INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND (IMF) has slashed further its gross domestic product (GDP) growth projection for the Philippines, adding to other groups that now expect the economy to miss the government’s targets for this year and 2020.

THE BANGKO SENTRAL ng Pilipinas (BSP) has moved to make local bonds issued by banks and quasi banks (QBs) more attractive to investors by reducing the reserve requirement rate (RRR) for such debt by 300 basis points from six percent currently, effective Nov. 1, according to an official statement on Tuesday.

THE ANTICIPATED P83.3-billion initial public offering (IPO) of Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC)’s hospital unit — which was supposed to be the biggest listing in the Philippine Stock Exchange to date — is delayed indefinitely from its earlier fourth-quarter schedule as the company welcomed an investor that poured P35.3 billion into the company.

VEHICLE SALES recovered in September after last month’s decline, the Chamber of Automotive Manufacturers of the Philippines, Inc. (CAMPI) and the Truck Manufacturers Association (TMA) reported on Tuesday.

SHORTLY PAST midnight on Oct. 2, the Star City Complex in Pasay City caught fire. Aside from the amusement park’s rides, the inferno, which lasted for 14 hours, also consumed the Aliw Theater — the home of Ballet Manila for nearly 20 years.

CENTURY PACIFIC FOOD, Inc. signed $12.57-million worth of new deals with four Russian food firms to export its tuna, sardine and coconut milk products to the country.

WALKING THROUGH near-empty galleries of the expanded Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York on its first day of press previews, I experienced serendipity at the MoMA for the first time ever. I turned a corner and stumbled across a vitrine with Meret Oppenheim’s fur cup from 1936 in front of Frida Kahlo’s from 1940; I walked to the left and was suddenly in front of Henri Matisse’s superstar work, Dance (I), from 1909.

THE GOVERNMENT fully awarded the fresh five-year Treasury bonds (T-bond) it offered during its auction yesterday, even opening its tap facility to accommodate excess demand from investors.

BEFORE the show, I had explained a synopsis of Sweeney Todd to my teenage sister; one of the things I noted was that the story is set in Victorian England. Upon entering the theater, the first thing I noticed was the sound of heavy rain coming from the onstage. It was only during the creative presentation of show reminders (Turn off your cellphone!) that I noticed: “Wait! It’s set during the Industrial Revolution, right? Then why are there cars?”