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Known for its rum, Tanduay releases a whisky

TANDUAY’s latest product is Embassy whisky.

GET YOUR #pinoypride engines roaring, people — Tanduay Distillers Inc., overtook Bacardi as the world’s bestselling rum brand. Tanduay sold 19.5 million cases of rum last year said a story on BusinessWorld on June 14. Here’s the catch: apparently, the export segment represented less than 1% of total sales, so it can be inferred that a large chunk of those 19.5 million cases were consumed in the country. Take that, Filipino livers.
According to Paul Lim, AVP for Marketing for Tanduay Distillers Inc., almost 90% of that figure was local sales. He also noted that the top three spirits manufacturers in the Philippines are also included in the world’s top ten. “Ganoon kalakas ang mga Pinoy uminom (That’s how much Filipinos like to drink),” said Mr. Lim.
Mr. Lim talked to BusinessWorld during the launch of a new Tanduay product earlier this week, a whisky called Embassy.
Several components of the whisky are imported from a wide range of sources, from Scotland to Singapore, said Gem Leonard Boy, Junior Brand Manager for the whisky. It is finished and blended, then bottled in the Philippines. Some components are also distilled here (such as the sugarcane alcohol that goes into it).
“The transition from rum to whisky isn’t really that hard,” said Mr. Boy, citing the quality of the company’s people and the quality of its facilities in Laguna.
As for the product itself, it has an oaky aroma with a slight hint of wood and tobacco. It’s very drinkable — quite sweet actually. It’s akin to the honey blends that bourbon brands are releasing, but there’s at least a slight hint of pepper and heat at the end.
Dalmore, makers of some of the world’s most expensive single malts, made headlines a few years ago when its holding company was bought by Filipino company Emperador Inc. Tanduay did no such thing in the preparation of Embassy, and, as mentioned above, simply brought all the components for it to be blended in its local facilities.
When asked why an established rum brand like Tanduay might venture into the more competitive world of whisky, Mr. Lim said, “Consumers today are willing to try different types of spirits.” — Joseph L. Garcia

AirAsia cancels Davao-KL flights starting Aug. 21

MALAYSIA AirAsia Berhad is halting flights between Davao and Kuala Lumpur in August. — LEAN S. DAVAL, JR.

DAVAO CITY — Malaysia AirAsia Berhad is dropping its flights between Davao and Kuala Lumpur in August, less than a year after launching the service in December 2017.
In a statement, the budget carrier said it is suspending the four times weekly direct flight starting Aug. 21 due to “commercial reasons.”
Davao City Tourism Operations Office officer-in-charge Generose D. Tecson also confirmed the cancellation and said the local government respects the “business decision” of the company.
“However, I do hope that they can reconsider by opting to operate once a week flights between KL to Davao and do more aggressive marketing in the neighboring regions,” Ms. Tecson said in an interview with BusinessWorld.
Ms. Tecson said the city government remains confident the AirAsia cancellation will not affect the entry of other foreign airlines such as Cathay Pacific, which has previously announced that it is considering direct flights to and from Hong Kong.
“Hong Kong is a different destination,” she said in Filipino, noting that locals are more “aware” of it as a tourism site and that there are more overseas Filipino workers based there.
“Although, of course, both sides will have to market (the route),” the tourism official added.
AirAsia said it is offering clients who already booked tickets with several “recovery options,” including changing the travel date before the suspension, a reroute via Manila or Cebu, convert the ticket value to a credit account, or a full refund.
AirAsia launched the Davao-KL route in December 2017, which AirAsia Group CEO Tony Fernandes said was a direct response to President Rodrigo R. Duterte’s request, which was made when they earlier met in Cambodia.
AirAsia Philippines operates several flights from Davao to domestic destinations such as Cebu, Clark, Kalibo, Palawan and Manila. — Maya M. Padillo

Facebook, Google ‘manipulate’ users to share data despite law

OSLO, NORWAY — Facebook and Google are pushing users to share private information by offering “invasive” and limited default options despite new EU data protection laws aimed at giving users more control and choice, a government study said Wednesday.
The Norwegian Consumer Council found that the US tech giants’ privacy updates clash with the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which forces companies to clarify what choices people have when sharing private information.
“These companies manipulate us into sharing information about ourselves,” the council’s director of digital services, Finn Myrstad, said in a statement.
“(This) is at odds with the expectations of consumers and the intention of the new Regulation,” the 2018 study, entitled “Deceived By Design,” concluded.
Myrstad said the practices showed “a lack of respect for their users, and are circumventing the notion of giving consumers control of their personal data.”
The case for the new laws has been boosted by the recent scandal over the harvesting of Facebook users’ data by British consultancy Cambridge Analytica for the 2016 US presidential election.
Information for the report was collected from mid-April to early June, a few weeks after the EU rules came into force.
The report exposed that Facebook and Google often set the least privacy-friendly option as a default and that users rarely change pre-selected settings.
Privacy-friendly choices “require more clicks and are often hidden,” it said.
“In many cases, the services obscure the fact that users have very few actual choices, and that comprehensive data sharing is accepted just by using the service,” the study said.
The EU has billed the GDPR as the biggest shake-up of data privacy regulations since the birth of the web.
The social media giant and Google separately already face their first official complaints under the new law after an Austrian privacy campaigner accused them of forcing users to give their consent to the use of their personal information.
Companies can be fined up to €20 million ($24 million) or 4% of annual global turnover for breaching the strict new data rules for the European Union, a market of 500 million people. — AFP

Robotics Barbie wants to inspire young scientists

LOS ANGELES — An inspirational new version of Barbie will encourage young girls to embark on careers in engineering and the sciences, the iconic doll’s manufacturer Mattel said on Tuesday.
Barbie, who first hit the shelves in 1959, prides herself on trying out jobs where women aren’t strongly represented, to add to her more traditional skill set of dancing with Ken and looking fabulous.
The company has announced a “Career of the year” Barbie who just happens to be a robotics engineer — a job that in real-life is occupied almost nine times out of ten by men.
Kids aren’t just supposed to play make-believe with the newest Barbie, however, as Mattel has partnered with games platform Tynker to provide owners with online coding experiences.
“For almost 60 years, Barbie has exposed girls to roles where women are underrepresented to show them that they can be anything,” Lisa McKnight, Mattel’s senior vice president for Barbie, said in statement.
“By playing with Robotics Engineer Barbie on and offline, we are giving girls a new platform for play in their imaginary world and teaching them important skills for their real world.”
The new doll joins a lineup of more than 200 careers held by Barbie, “all of which reinforce the brand’s purpose to inspire the limitless potential in every girl,” Mattel said in a statement.
Only 24% of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) jobs in the United States are held by women. — AFP

The stomach prevails: France wins at World Cup on Russian cheese

DUBROVSKOYE, RUSSIA — Russian businessman Oleg Sirota thinks he knows why the French soccer team got off to a winning start at the World Cup: he is supplying their hotel with cheese and yoghurt from his dairy.
Sirota opened his small Russky Parmezan factory in 2015 as a patriotic duty to keep Russians supplied after Moscow banned fresh food imports from western Europe. Now he says he has sold 400 kg of Kolmogorovsky — his answer to Dutch gouda — plus dozens of jars of yoghurt to the French base.
“I understood what the secret of the French team is. They just fill themselves with good cheese, they eat it and win,” a grinning Sirota said in a storage room filled with cheeses.
France have qualified for the knock-out stage of the tournament hosted by Russia, with two wins in Group C.
Sirota’s story is rooted in Russia’s troubled relations with neighboring Ukraine and the West. The 30-year-old, a former IT specialist, said he had wanted to fight alongside pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine but had not found the courage.
Instead his chance came after the Kremlin banned wholesale imports of fresh dairy products and meat from the European Union in 2014 — part of its retaliation against Western sanctions on Russia over its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine and its role in the rebellion.
That forced local producers to fill the void left by the absence of delicacies such as French Camembert and Italian Parmesan.
Sirota set up his business in Dubrovskoye, to the west of Moscow and less than 2 km from the French hotel.
The players seem satisfied with the food in Russia. “It’s not very different from what we have in France,” midfielder Nabil Fekir said.
Visitors to Russia are allowed to import small amounts of fresh food from the EU for personal use. Press officer Philippe Tournon didn’t confirm details of the players’ meals but said the team brought little from home. “We knew that we would find satisfactory food products in Russia, including in terms of cheese,” he said.
Sirota acknowledges the import ban has helped his business. “Maybe we’re not the champions in soccer,” he said. “But at least we are the champions in protectionism.”
And he makes no secret of his politics: outside his factory fly the flags of Russia and Novorossiya, the pro-Russian separatist regions of eastern Ukraine.
The Ukraine dispute lies center stage in the row with Western countries, including France.
But Sirota believes gastronomy trumps politics. “Maybe some people could have a problem with that,” he said. “But… in this case the stomach prevailed over the mind.” — Reuters

Unioil Philippines adds electric vehicle charging stations despite low demand

UNIOIL Petroleum Philippines, Inc. has launched on Wednesday its second electric vehicle charging station at its outlet along the northbound side of EDSA in Guadalupe in the hopes that it will encourage more drivers to switch from their fuel-powered cars.
“If you come here, it’s free charging for all electric vehicles… until the time comes that we see that there is sufficient demand,” Unioil President Kenneth C. Pundanera told reporters during the opening of the charging site.
Unioil on Nov. 27, 2017 became the first petroleum company in the Philippines to launch an e-vehicle (EV) charging facility at its fueling station along Congressional Ave. Extension in Quezon City.

“Right now, we are doing this to encourage more people to try the e-vehicles, to bring in e-vehicles. We’re also showing the government that we’re already building the infrastructure. No need to wait. We’re just waiting for the incentives for more e-vehicles to be sufficient,” Mr. Pundanera said.
Each EV charging station costs around P2.5 million to P3 million to put up.
“It’s very difficult to determine when the e-vehicles are gonna come in. It’s very difficult to determine when consumers will start accepting e-vehicles… the cost is a bit high for e-vehicles. We believe that this is the future,” Mr. Pundanera said.
Unioil’s EV charging station is equipped with the latest Chademo fast-charging protocol, which is compatible with most Japanese, US and European cars.
Even though there are no electric vehicles currently using its charging stations, Unioil is anticipating demand to spike in the future.
“We can’t say that we will only build when there are [electric] cars. Right now, what we’re doing is we’re putting first the charging facilities, showing people that it’s going to be ready — do not be afraid to buy e-vehicles. And to encourage government fast-track legislation that’s needed in order to encourage more e-vehicles to enter the Philippine market,” Mr. Pundanera said.
EXPANSION
As for Unioil’s regular fueling stations for gasoline and diesel, Mr. Pundanera said the company has a total of 61 operations outlets, mostly in Metro Manila.
He said 10 new stations are targeted to be put up this year, also in Metro Manila, Batangas and Pampanga.
“[The cost to build a station] averages from as low as P12 million to as high as P25 million,” he said, depending on the location and the size of the outlet.
Senator Sherwin T. Gatchalian, Senate energy committee chairman who was a guest during the launch, said studies show that by 2025, e-vehicles will be priced the same as traditional cars. The price of lithium-ion batteries has also dropped by nearly 200% in the past six years, he added.
“It [e-vehicle] will become more affordable to the mass market,” he said. “We’re coming out with a legislation to promote the entire system of e-vehicles — from charging station, to the usage, all the way to importation and even manufacture of e-vehicles in our country.”
Mr. Gatchalian said his office is finalizing the legislation on e-vehicles, including holding another hearing to consult industry stakeholders such as representatives from car manufacturers, oil companies, gas stations, distribution utilities, and the tax agency. — Victor V. Saulon

Twitter to confirm new accounts in fight vs spambots

SAN FRANCISCO — Twitter on Tuesday said it will begin asking for e-mail addresses or phone numbers to confirm new accounts as part of a battle against manipulation, particularly by automated bots.
twitter
Adding a way to check that a real person is behind new accounts was described by Twitter as being among measures to fight abuse, trolls, and hateful content.
“This is an important change to defend against people who try to take advantage of our openness,” Twitter executives Del Harvey and Yoel Roth said in a blog post.
The requirement will be rolled out later this year, and Twitter promised to make sure the change does not harm aspiring users in “high-risk” places.
Twitter recently began taking more steps to clean up spam and automated activity, and “close the loopholes they’d exploited,” according to Harvey and Roth.
“We’re also now automating some processes where we see suspicious account activity, like exceptionally high-volume tweeting with the same hashtag, or using the same @handle without a reply from the account you’re mentioning,” they said.
Twitter systems identified and challenged more than 9.9 million “potentially spammy or automated accounts” weekly in May, according to Harvey and Roth.
Twitter last month said that it was stepping up its long-running battle against online trolls, trying to find offenders by looking at “behavioral signals.”
The new approach looks at behavioral patterns of users in addition to the content of the tweets, allowing Twitter to find and mute online bullies and trolls.
Even if the offending tweets are not a violation of Twitter policy, they may be hidden from users if they are deemed to “distort” a conversation, Twitter said.
Twitter already uses artificial intelligence and machine learning in this effort but the latest initiative aims to do more by focusing on the actions of certain users in addition to the content.
Twitter is among online platforms under pressure to do more to safeguard against being used to spread misinformation or promote division, as proved the case during the US presidential election in 2016, in which US intelligence says Russia meddled to help Donald Trump win. — AFP

Global Ferronickel expects flat earnings this year

By Anna Gabriela A. Mogato, Reporter
GLOBAL Ferronickel Holdings, Inc. (FNI) expects net income to be flat this year, despite seeing stronger demand for nickel ore from China.
“[This year’s] growth will be relatively the same as last year. We expect the same results from last year,” Global Ferronickel President Dante R. Bravo told reporters on Wednesday.
FNI’s net income stood at P779.7 million in 2017, nearly 20 times more than the P37.5 million it recorded in 2016, due to better selling prices and “favorable” foreign exchange impact.
While nickel prices are expected to steadily rise this year, Mr. Bravo said the company’s bottom line will be affected by the new tax law and tighter regulatory requirements.
“You combine the impact of the excise tax and the other collateral impact plus the increase in regulatory requirements, plus the environmental cost, then it has affected our bottom line,” he said.
“Even if we expect a better price compared to last year but because of the impact of the bottom line, it will be offset by whatever it is that we have.”
However, the company expects to benefit from the continued peso depreciation, as it exports to China.
“What is consoling, because we are an exporter, the peso has depreciated by 6% so that means an additional 6% also. If your cost has risen by say, 10%, then there is only a net loss of 4%,” Mr. Bravo said.
Global Ferronickel is also looking to take advantage of rising demand for electric vehicles, which make use of nickel as a raw material in manufacturing.
“Every year there is an increase in production, an increase in demand of electric vehicles, the estimate is at around 30% to 40% globally but in China it’s increasing more than. The biggest producer of e-Vehicles is China at this point, more than Tesla,” Mr. Bravo said.
While Indonesia is its main competitor as a nickel ore supplier to China, Mr. Bravo said the firm has an advantage. “We’re close to China and our ores are capable of being smelted in China,” he said.
This year, the company is eyeing to ship 6 million wet metric tons of nickel ore.
At the same time, Mr. Bravo said the company is looking to add limestone to its portfolio, after it found a large deposit of the mineral in a one-hectare lot in one of its mines.
This will give the company an opportunity to expand to the cement business, allowing it to take advantage of the strong demand for construction materials amid the government’s “Build Build Build” program.

WineGame app brings the Master Sommelier experience to the masses

WWW.WINEGAME.COM

LAST WEEK, Rob Wilder, the co-founder of ThinkFoodGroup, announced the release of WineGame, a simple app that instantly turns any bottle into a fun, multiple-choice blind tasting game. Even if you don’t know Wilder’s name, you certainly know his partner’s: star chef and humanitarian Jose Andrés. The game began as a late-night lark between Wilder and Andrés who would challenge each other to blindly taste and then correctly name the wine hidden inside a paper bag.
Blind tasting is a big part of what all sommeliers do to earn their stripes. And it ain’t easy. The challenge of deductive tasting is one of the reasons why there are less than 250 Master Sommeliers in the world. That’s why another one of the brains (and palates) behind WineGame is Keith Goldston, who became America’s 47th MS and the youngest to pass all three parts — theory, tasting, and practical — on the first go.
The goal with WineGame is to make blind tasting way more accessible, super social, educational, and fun. “Somebody who likes wine but doesn’t know much, can still play,” says Wilder.
HOW IT WORKS
First, the app directs you to populate the game with wines by either scanning a label with your phone’s camera or typing in a keyword. Without fail, from Old Westminster Albariño (an obscure wine from Maryland) to Nino Negri Sfursat 5 Stelle (a hard-to-find Italian gem), and even Bota Box Brick Merlot, the app was unstumpable in finding the bottle I wanted to taste.
“Scanning a label, putting in a keyword, finding any wine, and getting the facts about it, that’s actually pretty easy,” says Wilder. “There have been people building those databases for a while.”
Next, you’re prompted to discern the grape. Five options are presented, and you get three tries. Then it’s on to country, region, and vintage/label. If you get stuck, there’s a “hint” button to help narrow down the answers. The fewer mis-guesses, the more points you accumulate. The platform generates logical answers to each question, so that gamers learn even when answering incorrectly.
“That’s the special sauce of WineGame,” said Wilder. “Right answers are easy. What’s hard is taking those right answers and turning them into a multiple-choice game with wrong answers.” In the case of a rosé from Provence, for instance, the app had me choose not from a random selection of five wines, but from related Provencal rosés that would make any pro take pause.
Before the big reveal, WineGame asks you to rate the wine.
“This is an important moment for the game, because you’re deciding how much you like the wine before you find out what it is or know anything about how much it costs,” says Wilder. Unless you were the host who bought the wine and scanned in the label for friends, players are scoring wines without any label or cost bias. “We’re betting that data will be really interesting for restaurants.”
MONETIZATION
While at-home use will be free, WineGame aims to make money by licensing their proprietary software for events, blind flights at restaurants, upgraded private dining, on-premise entertainment (think bar trivia), and so on.
“Thinking of adding a wine to your list? Put it in your game and you’ve got a focus group.” In the app’s Game Center, there are also leader boards akin to the Strava app for athletes that allow players to track stats locally and globally. “Imagine the business traveler sitting at the bar all alone and the bartender says, ‘Hey, you want to have some fun?’”
Bartholomew Broadbent, named one of the “50 most influential people in the wine world” by Decanter Magazine, agrees. “WineGame is brilliant for the novice or expert alike. I’ve played it with Master Sommeliers and complete novices and everyone loves it.”
“My suggestion,” he adds, “would be to go into your local wine shop, give them a budget of, say, one hundred dollars, and have them select six wines which they give you in brown bags, having already set them up on your WineGame app. Then, you take your bottles home and start playing with your friends, so even you don’t know what the wines are. If you like Trivial Pursuit, if you like wine, if you have friends, then you need WineGame.” — Jason Tesauro, Bloomberg

TDF yields climb after BSP hike

By Melissa Luz T. Lopez, Senior Reporter
YIELDS ON term deposits surged yesterday as banks took advantage of the higher interest rates set by the central bank, with appetite still skewed towards the shortest tenor.
Wednesday’s auction was met by weak demand from banks as they were only willing to place P92.636 billion under the term deposit facility (TDF) of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP). This barely filled the P100-billion offer and slipped further from the P100.634 billion bids received a week ago.
Players betted big on the week-long instruments which accounted for about half the total tenders, leaving the two-week and one-month tenors undersubscribed for the third straight week.
The seven-day papers received P45.831 billion in total offers, surpassing the P40 billion on the auction block but dropping from the P64.409 billion bids seen the week prior. This pushed yields higher to average 3.7523%, some six basis points (bp) higher than the 3.6927% fetched during the June 20 exercise.
Meanwhile, appetite for the 14-day term deposits remained tepid. The BSP’s P40-billion offer was met by P31.99 billion worth of tenders, which slightly improved from the P28.016 billion submitted last week.
Despite this, banks asked for wider margins ranging from 3.7-4%, as they maximized the higher spreads set by the central bank. As a result, the average rate surged to 3.8689%, up 13.5bp from 3.7342% previously.
The 28-day tenor also saw a partial recovery in demand as it shored up P14.815 billion worth of bids from P8.209 billion a week ago. Still, this failed to fill the P20 billion which the BSP wanted to sell. This pushed the average yield to 3.8471%, which is 11.5bp higher from the 3.7326% fetched last week.
The TDF is the central bank’s main tool in arresting excess money supply in the financial system. The BSP actively adjusts auction amounts each week in order to bring market and interbank rates within its desired spread.
Last week, the Monetary Board announced a fresh 25bp hike in policy rates to rein in inflation expectations, which comes back-to-back with a similar move in May.
Central bank officials earlier said that banks have been biased towards shorter tenors as they avoid keeping their funds locked in for too long, at a time of uncertainties in the domestic and global financial markets.
Over the past weeks, BSP Deputy Governor Diwa C. Guinigundo said market players have chosen to place more funds under overnight facilities rather than lock down their cash for several days or weeks under the TDF.
The same trend has been observed with government-issued debt papers, with investors crowding Treasury bills over the longer-term bonds floated every week.

As numbers fall, Paris seeks UNESCO help for classic bistros

PARIS — It might seem like there are two on every corner in Paris, but old-style bistros and street cafés are dying out to such an extent that a movement has started to try to protect them.
Alain Fontaine, owner of Le Mesturet and founder of Bistrots et Terrasses de Paris, says an essential part of Parisian life will be lost unless a way can be found to preserve the classic café with zinc-topped bar, terrace, and good food.
“They’re vibrant places, open to life and the city,” his group says on its website, which has launched a campaign to get recognition from UNESCO, the Paris-based UN cultural organization. “They’re threatened and need protection.”
Thirty years ago bistros and street cafés made up half the restaurants in Paris, according to Fontaine, but the figure has fallen to just 14%, with fast-food joints, coffee chains, and snack bars steadily squeezing them out.
For Fontaine, UNESCO recognition would restore pride to bistro owners and put tradition back on the map.
“Tourists would know where to go in Paris,” he told Reuters.
“If they want to meet Parisians in bistros and on terraces, there would be a label, we will be in the guide, there will be signs in the windows reading ‘this establishment is recognized as a world heritage site by UNESCO’.”
In some popular areas of the city, the absence of sidewalk cafés has begun to stand out.
On the Boulevard Saint-Michel on the Left Bank, near the Pantheon and the Luxembourg Gardens, Burger King and McDonald’s now occupy two corners where cafés once stood, and across the street a bistro recently shut down.
Tourists say they like the idea of a special status.
“There’s only a few cities where there’s really a café culture, a bistro culture, and Paris is one of them, and that’s really my favorite part about coming here,” said Holly, an American visitor having lunch with her partner.
“We’d be walking down the street and be like, ‘oh, let’s get a cup of coffee’, and it’s so easy for us to pop in anywhere. You can’t do that in most places.”
But bistros aren’t just for tourists. Many French drop in for a coffee or lunch at their local favorite, glad to get a meal of steak frites or confit de canard at a decent price.
“When you think of Paris, you think of gastronomy,” said local Mathieu Warnier. “Bistros, at least a large part of them… are places where you can get good traditional food without paying extortionate prices.” — Reuters

Basic Energy invests in 2 Thai companies

BASIC ENERGY Corp. on Wednesday said it has signed the share purchase agreements to acquire a 15% stake in two Thai companies, which are building a solar power project in Myanmar.
“We signed [for] the entry of Basic [Energy] into two EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) companies that are based in Thailand. They’re doing the EPC contract for the 220-megawatt (MW) solar project in Myanmar,” Basic Energy President and Chief Executive Oscar L. de Venecia, Jr. told reporters after the company’s annual stockholders meeting on Wednesday.
Basic Energy signed the deal with Meta Corp. Public Co. Ltd. (Thailand) covering the purchase of shares in Vintage EPC Co. Ltd. (Thailand), or VEPC, and VTE International Construction Co. Ltd. (Thailand), or Vinter.
Mr. De Venecia clarified his company’s participation is as stakeholder in the EPC companies and not the solar project.
In a disclosure on Wednesday, Basic Energy said that as of Dec. 31, 2017, the company had remitted around $2.622 million as earnest money deposit, which will be converted into its paid-in capital contribution into the VEPC and Vinter on the closing dates stipulated in the share purchase agreements.
Under the shareholders agreement, the company will be represented by Mr. de Venecia as one of the directors of the Thai companies.
VEPC and Vinter are the EPC supplier and the EPC construction service contractor, respectively, for the solar power project in Minbu District, Magway Region, Myanmar.
The owner-developer of the project is Green Earth Power (Myanmar), which is the holder of the power purchase agreement with the Myanmar government’s energy and power ministry, the company said.
The plan, design and construction of the project started in 2016. The first phase, which is under construction, is expected to be completed by the first quarter of 2019.
Basic Energy said the equity investments in the Thai companies marked its foray into solar-related energy projects overseas.
The company said it “continues to pursue its geothermal energy projects, while opportunities in other renewable energy projects, such as solar, wind and biomass energy, are currently undergoing due-diligence studies and work.” — Victor V. Saulon

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