Farm output likely grew 5% in Q2 — Agri chief
FARM OUTPUT growth for the second quarter likely matched the first quarter’s pace to remain supportive of the economy during the period, the country’s agriculture chief said over the weekend.
BoI ahead of the pace on 2017 investment target
THE Board of Investments (BoI) said it expects registered investments to be worth P290 billion in the seven months to July, or nearly 60% of the agency’s full-year target of P500 billion.
“We still have more projects in the pipeline worth around P18 billion and is expected to be approved before July ends,” Ceferino S. Rodolfo, Trade undersecretary and BoI managing head, told reporters.
From January to mid-July 2017, investments for projects registered with the BoI reached P273 billion, up 30% from the P210 billion recorded for the seven months to July 2016, Mr. Rodolfo said.
“We still have two board meetings,” he said, adding that the P290-billion figure is reachable by month’s end and would represent a growth rate of 38% for the seven months.
He said the recent approval of the P79-billion MRT-7 project of San Miguel Corp. boosted investment registration figures this year.
The project involves the construction of the 23-kilometer elevated railway line with 14 stations from San Jose Del Monte, Bulacan to MRT-3’s North Avenue terminal in Quezon City.
It also covers the 22-kilometer asphalt road from Bocaue interchange of the North Luzon Expressway to the intermodal terminal in Tala.
The road component is expected to divert northern provincial bus operations to San Jose Del Monte, decongesting EDSA and dispersing economic activities across the regions, Mr. Rodolfo said.
“[In terms of] job generation, we’re 50% up,” he said, citing a January to mid-July figure of 56,056 new jobs to be created by the registered projects as against last year’s seven-month tally of 37,487.
The new jobs and investments are for 245 projects, up 28% compared with the previous year’s 192. This year’s investment target comes as the BoI celebrates its 50th founding anniversary.
Mr. Rodolfo said the agency’s performance so far this year is “on pace to achieve that mark.” He previously said that the BoI was expecting the country to attract more innovation-led and technology-driven investment projects due to the extension of the incentives offered for the importation of capital equipment, spare parts and accessories by qualified businesses.
Executive Order (EO) No. 22 replaced EO 70, which expired on May 9, 2017. It is effective for five years or until a law amending EO 226 (s. 1987), or the Omnibus Investments Code of 1987, is enacted.
He said the measure also augurs well for the agency’s 2017 Investment Priorities Plan (IPP), which he said encourages more innovation-driven and job-generating investment projects.
Under the executive order, which was signed on April 28, qualified business enterprises registered with the BoI are exempt from paying duties when they acquire from other countries capital equipment classified under specific chapters of the Tariff and Customs Code of the Philippines.
However, the duty exemption will be granted only after the BoI issues a certificate of authority to the importer. The agency said the privilege strictly applies to equipment not manufactured locally or of insufficient supply domestically. The equipment should also be for the exclusive use of the registered company.
The BoI, which was designated to lay down the implementing rules and regulation of the order, did not immediately respond when asked whether the incentives would benefit all the enterprises enumerated under the agency’s investment priorities plan. — Victor V. Saulon
Australian shopping malls turn to village life as retailers feel pinch
SYDNEY — As Australia’s local merchants struggle with an influx of global names, leading malls are considering returning to their village center roots to woo new tenants by moving away from shops and offering medical facilities, more restaurants and even amusement parks.
Several top retailers have recently succumbed to pressure from foreign giants such as Japan’s Uniqlo and Sephora of France and with Amazon plotting its debut in the country, the future looks tough.
The response from developers has been to redefine the mall away from a “shopping” focus to become a more community-driven service and entertainment space.
While cafes and restaurants have long helped attract shoppers to malls, they are now filling shopping centers, providing some buzz even as an eerie quiet fills some nearby clothing stores.
With the big global names pouring huge sums of cash into the country, once popular clothing chains such as David Lawrence, Pumpkin Patch, Herringbone, and Rhodes & Beckett have bitten the dust, while others scramble to reduce costs.
This has included cutting back on bricks and mortar stores, and steering center owners towards food, entertainment, health care and childcare providers.
Major landlords such as Vicinity and Westfield spin-off Scentre, which this year have seen their share prices slip to one or two-year lows, are already redeveloping their arcades.
Vicinity’s Chadstone Shopping Centre in Melbourne, Australia’s largest mall, is now the site of the southern hemisphere’s first massive amusement park Legoland.
The company is also tapping into newer technologies such as facial recognition to identify consumers through their age and gender and analyze their shopping habits.
“What we are seeing is the malls starting to pivot away from commodity-type products… towards retailers that offer a service which isn’t physical,” real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield’s retail investments head Nick Potter told AFP.
“Shopping centers are the modern village, it’s where everyone comes together. These centers are typically located in the center of towns, they’ve got strong infrastructure… and that offers up the ability to move with the times.”
UTOPIAN VISION
The move is a return to the vision of Victor Gruent, an Austrian-born American who in the 1950s developed the concept of the arcade as a public space akin to the market place of centuries past, where civic life played a central role.
Adding to the shift is the growth of online shopping, which offers shoppers the same options but with the added bonus of not being subject to general sales tax (GST) for anything below Aus$1,000 (US$760).
Canberra has sought to end the loophole by imposing a 10% levy from next July but the lower margins for online store such as eBay and ASOS still makes them attractive.
While online shopping is estimated to make up a little more than 10% of total retail sales, future arrivals such as Amazon could change that.
“If (online shopping) jumps up in a big way, how does that affect bricks and mortar? Maybe all shopping centres just become cafes,” University of Technology Sydney accounting expert David Bond told AFP.
“You’ll probably see it move more towards just products being sold online, versus services, cafes, cinemas, game centers and creches (at malls).”
The University of Canberra’s Lisa Scharoun, who analyzes the cultural role of shopping centers in societies, has seen the changes first-hand, with more than half of a local mall now filled with restaurants and cafes.
Scharoun said developers were moving away from hosting consumption-driven stores and were more willing to lease space to other users such as churches and libraries.
“I think that the mall is evolving back to what it was actually intended to be when it was first conceived,” she told AFP. “It was supposed to be like an enclosed community space… a utopian vision of Victor Gruen.” — AFP