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Solheim Cup

There were no ties in the first two days of the Solheim Cup, as much a reflection of the resolute spirits of both sides as of the vagaries of golf. Still and all, the United States wound up with a commanding 10-6 lead heading into singles play. Europe’s slow start proved disastrous to its cause; the Day One morning and afternoon sessions produced 3-1 slates that highlighted the strengths of Captain Stacy Lewis’ unflinching reliance on data analytics to determine pairings. And even though Day Two proved to be a wash, the advantage was forged.

Interestingly, Lewis’ plan to inject science into the competition produced mixed results last year; it may have produced a 14-14 finish, but the trophy remained in Europe’s hands given the built-in equity of the incumbent. Still, there was reason to be optimistic; the score was the highest for the US since it claimed the Cup in 2017. The fact that the biennial meet was slated to be held at the Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Gainesville, Virginia likewise provided no small measure of optimism. The pluses of retrofitting the layout to favor the tendencies of stalwarts of the red, white, and blue — along with playing in front of partisan fans — were not lost on the hosts.

Needless to say, Day Three for the US involved keeping its date with fate and ultimately ensuring its celebration. Yet,  for a while there, it looked hard-pressed to live up to expectations. World Number One Nelly Korda faltered in the leadoff spot, triggering an afternoon of anxiety for Lewis. Meanwhile Europe counterpart Suzann Pettersen held out hope for a remarkable comeback. Six set-tos later, however, it became evident that the projected outcome was a matter of when, not if. World Number Two Lilia Vu’s tap-in birdie on the 18th for a half-point formalized the victory.

In retrospect, it was, perhaps, wishful thinking on the part of Europe to think it could upend the US given its intrinsic frailties. The final tally, a 12.5-15.5 defeat, marked the biggest difference between the contenders in seven years. That said, it deserves props for its refusal to accept defeat until the end. And, certainly, it can find solace in its apparent capacity to keep pace in singles; as in the 2019, 2021, and 2023 stagings, it managed to do at least as well on Day Three, its underdog status notwithstanding. Which is to say 2026 can’t happen soon enough.

 

Anthony L. Cuaycong has been writing Courtside since BusinessWorld introduced a Sports section in 1994. He is a consultant on strategic planning, operations and human resources management, corporate communications, and business development.

AI experts ready ‘Humanity’s Last Exam’ to stump powerful technology

RAWPIXEL-FREEPIK

A TEAM of technology experts issued a global call on Monday seeking the toughest questions to pose to artificial intelligence (AI) systems, which increasingly have handled popular benchmark tests like child’s play.

Dubbed “Humanity’s Last Exam,” the project seeks to determine when expert-level AI has arrived. It aims to stay relevant even as capabilities advance in future years, according to the organizers, a nonprofit called the Center for AI Safety (CAIS) and the startup Scale AI.

The call comes days after the maker of ChatGPT previewed a new model, known as OpenAI o1, which “destroyed the most popular reasoning benchmarks,” said Dan Hendrycks, executive director of CAIS and an advisor to Elon Musk’s xAI startup.

Mr. Hendrycks co-authored two 2021 papers that proposed tests of AI systems that are now widely used, one quizzing them on undergraduate-level knowledge of topics like US history, the other probing models’ ability to reason through competition-level math. The undergraduate-style test has more downloads from the online AI hub Hugging Face than any such dataset.

At the time of those papers, AI was giving almost random answers to questions on the exams. “They’re now crushed,” Mr. Hendrycks told Reuters.

As one example, the Claude models from the AI lab Anthropic have gone from scoring about 77% on the undergraduate-level test in 2023, to nearly 89% a year later, according to a prominent capabilities leaderboard.

These common benchmarks have less meaning as a result.

AI has appeared to score poorly on lesser-used tests involving plan formulation and visual pattern-recognition puzzles, according to Stanford University’s AI Index Report from April. OpenAI o1 scored around 21% on one version of the pattern-recognition ARC-AGI test, for instance, the ARC organizers said on Friday.

Some AI researchers argue that results like this show planning and abstract reasoning to be better measures of intelligence, though Mr. Hendrycks said the visual aspect of ARC makes it less suited to assessing language models. “Humanity’s Last Exam” will require abstract reasoning, he said.

Answers from common benchmarks may also have ended up in data used to train AI systems, industry observers have said. Mr. Hendrycks said some questions on “Humanity’s Last Exam” will remain private to make sure AI systems’ answers are not from memorization.

The exam will include at least 1,000 crowd-sourced questions due Nov. 1 that are hard for non-experts to answer. These will undergo peer review, with winning submissions offered co-authorship and up to $5,000 prizes sponsored by Scale AI.

“We desperately need harder tests for expert-level models to measure the rapid progress of AI,” said Alexandr Wang, Scale’s chief executive officer.

One restriction: the organizers want no questions about weapons, which some say would be too dangerous for AI to study. — Reuters

Global index for free elections suffers biggest decline on record in 2023

PHILIPPINE STAR/KRIZ JOHN ROZALES

STOCKHOLM — Lower voter turnout and increasingly contested results globally are threatening the credibility of elections, an intergovernmental watchdog warned on Tuesday, as its sub-index for free and fair elections suffered its biggest decline on record in 2023.

In its report, the Stockholm-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) said 2023 was the eighth consecutive year with a net decline in overall democratic performance, the longest consecutive fall since records began in 1975.

The watchdog bases its Global State of Democracy indexes on more than 100 variables and uses four main categories — representation, rights, rule of law and participation — to categorize performance.

The category of democracy related to free and fair elections and parliamentary oversight, a sub-category of representation, suffered its worst year on record in 2023.

“This report is a call for action to protect democratic elections,” IDEA’s Secretary-General Kevin Casas-Zamora said in the report. “The success of democracy depends on many things, but it becomes utterly impossible if elections fail.”

The think tank said government intimidation and electoral process irregularities, such as fraudulent voter registration and vote-counting, were increasing. It also said that threats of foreign interference, disinformation and the use of artificial intelligence in campaigns added to challenges.

It also said that global voter participation had fallen to 55.5% of eligible voters in 2023 from 65.2% in 2008. Globally, in almost 20% of elections between 2020 and 2024, one of the losing candidates or parties rejected the results.

IDEA said that the democratic performance in the US, which holds a presidential election this year, had recovered somewhat in the past two years, but the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump in July highlighted continued risks.

“Less than half (47%) of the Americans said the 2020 election was ‘free and fair’ and the country remains deeply polarized,” IDEA said. — Reuters

Antibiotic-resistance deaths to surge from 2025-2050 — study

PXHERE.COM

BACTERIAL ILLNESSES that are resistant to available antibiotic medicines will cause more than 39 million deaths worldwide over the next 25 years and indirectly contribute to an additional 169 million deaths, according to a forecast published on Monday.

By 2050, annual death tolls attributed directly to antibiotic resistance, or associated with it, will reach 1.91 million and 8.22 million, respectively, if remediation measures are not in place, an international team of researchers reported in The Lancet.

Those annual numbers represent increases of nearly 68% and 75% per year, respectively, over death tolls directly and indirectly attributed to antibiotic resistance in 2022, the researchers with the Global Research on Antimicrobial Resistance Project wrote.

The increases will strain health systems and national economies and contribute to annual gross domestic product losses of $1 trillion to $3.4 trillion by 2030, they predict.

The forecast of how the antibiotic resistance burden is likely to evolve was released ahead of a Sept. 26 United Nations (UN) General Assembly High Level Meeting on the subject.

“This landmark study confirms that the world is facing an antibiotic emergency, with devastating human costs for families and communities across the world,” Dame Sally Davies, the Special Envoy on Antimicrobial Resistance for the UK and a member of the UN Interagency Coordination Group on Antimicrobial Resistance, said in a statement. She was not involved in the research.

Resistance to antimicrobials appears to pose the biggest threat to the elderly, with deaths in adults over age 70 increasing by more than 80% between 1990 and 2021, according to the report.

Low- and middle-income countries face a disproportionate burden, with the highest rates of antibiotic-resistance-related deaths occurring in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, in particular from multi-drug resistant tuberculosis, researchers said.

Antibiotic resistance occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites no longer respond to drugs, either because of genetic changes in these organisms or, more often, because of the misuse and overuse of the drugs to treat, prevent or control infections in humans, animals and plants, according to the World Health Organization.

Access to better care for serious infections, new vaccines to prevent infections, and more judicious medical protocols that limit antibiotic use to appropriate cases could save a total of 92 million lives between 2025 and 2050, they also predict.

Estimates for the new study were made for 22 types of disease-causing organisms, 84 combinations of drugs vs bacteria, and 11 infectious syndromes such as meningitis and sepsis.

The estimates were based on records from 520 million people of all ages in 204 countries from a wide range of sources, including hospital data, death records, and antibiotic use data. — Reuters

COP29 leaders unveil climate funding and energy storage goals

FREEPIK

LONDON – Less than two months ahead of the COP29 United Nations Climate Summit, the Azerbaijani leadership laid out its plans on Tuesday for what it hoped to achieve, as countries continue to wrestle with how to raise ambitions for a new financing target.

The main task for the November summit is for countries to agree on a new annual target for funding that wealthy countries will pay to help poorer nations cope with climate change. Many developing countries say they cannot upgrade their targets to cut emissions faster without first receiving more financial support to invest in doing this.

With countries remaining far from agreement on the financing goal, the COP29 presidency this week outlined more than a dozen side initiatives that could raise ambitions, but do not require party negotiation and building consensus which can hamper progress. These take the form of new funds, pledges, and declarations that national governments can adopt.

Notably, this includes a fund with voluntary contributions from fossil fuel producing countries and companies for the public and private sectors working on climate issues, as well as grants that can be doled out to assist with climate-fuelled natural disasters in developing countries.

Such side agendas use “the convening power of COP and the hosts’ respective national capabilities to form coalitions and drive progress,” said Mukhtar Babayev, who holds the rotating COP presidency, in a letter to all parties and stakeholders.

Over 120 countries pledged at last year’s COP28 summit in Dubai, for example, to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030.

The COP29 presidency also hopes to build support around a pledge to increase global energy storage capacity six times above 2022 levels, reaching 1,500 gigawatts by 2030. This would include a commitment to scale up investments in energy grids, adding or refurbishing more than 80 million km (50 million miles) by 2040.

Babayev, who is Azerbaijan’s minister of ecology and natural resources, said the agenda would “help to enhance ambition by bringing stakeholders together around common principles and goals.”

“We hope to address some of the most pressing issues while also highlighting remaining priorities,” he said.

Another declaration would see countries and companies create a global market for clean hydrogen, addressing regulatory, technological, financing and standardization barriers.

COP29 leaders have also appealed for a “COP Truce” that would highlight the importance of peace and climate action.

Despite countries’ existing climate commitments, carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels hit a record high last year, and the world just registered its hottest summer on record as temperatures climb. – Reuters

US strategy for anti-ship weapons to counter China: plentiful, mobile, deadly

An MH-60R Sea Hawk helicopter launches during flight operations aboard the US Navy aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan in the South China Sea, July 17, 2020. — US NAVY/MASS COMMUNICATION SPECIALIST 2ND CLASS CODIE L. SOULE/HANDOUT VIA REUTERS.

SINGAPORE – The United States is amassing an arsenal of abundant and easily made anti-ship weapons as part of American efforts to deter China in the Indo-Pacific region and gear up US forces there.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has pushed U.S. thinking toward a new philosophy – “affordable mass,” as one missile industry CEO put it, speaking on condition of anonymity, referring to having plenty of relatively cheap weapons at the ready.

“It’s a natural counter to what China has been doing,” said Euan Graham, a senior analyst with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute think tank, referring to the Chinese arsenal of ships and conventional ballistic missiles including those designed to attack vessels.

The Pentagon and China’s Ministry of Defense did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The United States has ramped up testing of its QUICKSINK weapon, an inexpensive and potentially plentiful bomb equipped with a low-cost GPS guidance kit and a seeker that can track moving objects. The U.S. Air Force used a B-2 stealth bomber during a test last month in the Gulf of Mexico to strike a target ship with QUICKSINK.

China will still have a large advantage in sheer numbers of anti-ship missiles, according to experts, and can base them on its home territory. But increasing U.S. production of QUICKSINK would narrow that gap by putting China’s 370 or so warships at more risk during any future conflict than they have faced since before Beijing leaned into modernizing its military in the 1990s.

QUICKSINK, still in development, is made by Boeing, with a seeker from BAE Systems. QUICKSINK can be used with the hundreds of thousands of Joint-Direct Attack Munition tail kits – systems that can be dropped from U.S. or allied warplanes and cheaply turn “dumb” 2,000-pound (900-kg) bombs into guided weapons.

The U.S. military’s Indo-Pacific Command wants thousands of the QUICKSINK weapons – and has for years – according to an industry executive, who declined to reveal the precise figure because it is classified.

With enough “affordable mass” weapons aimed at them, Chinese ship defenses would be overwhelmed, according to this executive, speaking on condition of anonymity.

In such a scenario, the U.S. military would use Long Range Anti-Ship Missiles (LRASM) or SM-6 missiles to damage a Chinese warship and its radars, then bombard the vessel with lower-cost weapons such as QUICKSINK.

 

A VARIETY OF WEAPONS

The United States has been amassing a variety of anti-ship weapons in Asia. In April, the U.S. Army deployed its new Typhon mobile missile batteries, which were developed cheaply from existing components and can fire SM-6 and Tomahawk missiles against sea targets, to the Philippines during an exercise.

Such weapons are relatively easy to produce – drawing on large stockpiles and designs that have been around for a decade or more – and could help the United States and its allies catch up quickly in an Indo-Pacific missile race in which China has a big lead.

Although the U.S. military has declined to say how many will be deployed in the Indo-Pacific region, more than 800 SM-6 missiles are due to be bought in the next five years, according to government documents outlining military purchases. Several thousand Tomahawks and hundreds of thousands of JDAMs are already in U.S. inventories, the documents showed.

“China’s game is to restrict the movement of U.S. Navy assets in the Western Pacific and First Island Chain,” Graham said, referring to the closest major archipelagos from the coast of East Asia. “This is a sort of like-minded response to make life difficult for the PLAN.”

PLAN is short for the People’s Liberation Army Navy, China’s maritime service branch.

Placing anti-ship weapons in locations such as the Philippines would put them within reach of much of the South China Sea. China claims 90% of the South China Sea as its sovereign territory, but is opposed by five Southeast Asian states and Taiwan.

Collin Koh, a scholar at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, said, “In a way it is like levelling the playing field.”

Koh cited the example of Iran-aligned Houthi forces using low-tech anti-ship weapons against civilian traffic in the Red Sea, which forced the United States and others to deploy costly weapons to defend against them.

“If you look at the case of the Red Sea, clearly the cost equation (of anti-ship missiles) doesn’t fall on the side of the defender,” Koh said. “Even if you have a smaller arsenal of such offensive missile systems, you can still project some deterrence.” – Reuters

France uses tough, untested cybercrime law to target Telegram’s Durov

A PROTESTER holds a French national flag as people gather to protest against the French far-right Rassemblement National (National Rally - RN) party, at the Place de la Republique following partial results in the first round of the early 2024 legislative elections, in Paris, France, June 30, 2024. — REUTERS

PARIS – When French prosecutors took aim at Telegram boss Pavel Durov, they had a trump card to wield – a tough new law with no international equivalent that criminalizes tech titans whose platforms allow illegal products or activities.

The so-called LOPMI law, enacted in January 2023, has placed France at the forefront of a group of nations taking a sterner stance on crime-ridden websites. But the law is so recent that prosecutors have yet to secure a conviction.

With the law still untested in court, France’s pioneering push to prosecute figures like Mr. Durov could backfire if its judges balk at penalizing tech bosses for alleged criminality on their platforms.

A French judge placed Mr. Durov under formal investigation last month, charging him with various crimes, including the 2023 offence: “Complicity in the administration of an online platform to allow an illicit transaction, in an organized gang,” which carries a maximum 10-year sentence and a 500,000 euro ($556,300) fine.

Being under formal investigation does not imply guilt or necessarily lead to trial, but indicates judges think there’s enough evidence to proceed with the probe. Investigations can last years before being sent to trial or dropped.

Mr. Durov, out on bail, denies Telegram was an “anarchic paradise.” Telegram has said it “abides by EU laws,” and that it’s “absurd to claim that a platform or its owner are responsible for abuse of that platform.”

In a radio interview last week, Paris Prosecutor Laure Beccuau hailed the 2023 law as a powerful tool for battling organized crime groups who are increasingly operating online.

The law appears to be unique. Eight lawyers and academics told Reuters they were unaware of any other country with a similar statute.

“There is no crime in U.S. law directly analogous to that and none that I’m aware of in the Western world,” said Adam Hickey, a former U.S. deputy assistant attorney general who established the Justice Department’s (DOJ) national security cyber program.

Mr. Hickey, now at U.S. law firm Mayer Brown, said U.S. prosecutors could charge a tech boss as a “co-conspirator or an aider and abettor of the crimes committed by users” but only if there was evidence the “operator intends that its users engage in, and himself facilitates, criminal activities.”

He cited the 2015 conviction of Ross Ulbricht, whose Silk Road website hosted drug sales. U.S. prosecutors argued Ulbricht “deliberately operated Silk Road as an online criminal marketplace … outside the reach of law enforcement,” according to the DOJ. Ulbricht got a life sentence.

Timothy Howard, a former U.S. federal prosecutor who put Ulbricht behind bars, was “sceptical” Durov could be convicted in the United States without proof he knew about the crimes on Telegram, and actively facilitated them – especially given Telegram’s vast, mainly law-abiding user base.

“Coming from my experience of the U.S. legal system,” he said, the French law appears “an aggressive theory.”

Michel Séjean, a French professor of cyber law, said the toughened legislation in France came after authorities grew exasperated with companies like Telegram.

“It’s not a nuclear weapon,” he said. “It’s a weapon to prevent you from being impotent when faced with platforms that don’t cooperate.”

 

TOUGHER LAWS

The 2023 law traces its origins to a 2020 French interior ministry white paper, which called for major investment in technology to tackle growing cyber threats.

It was followed by a similar law in November 2023, which included a measure for the real-time geolocation of people suspected of serious crimes by remotely activating their devices. A proposal to turn on their devices’ cameras and mouthpieces so that investigators could watch or listen in was shot down by France’s Constitutional Council.

These new laws have given France some of the world’s toughest tools for tackling cybercrime, with the proof being the arrest of Mr. Durov on French soil, said Sadry Porlon, a French lawyer specialized in communication technology law.

Tom Holt, a cybercrime professor at Michigan State University, said LOPMI “is a potentially powerful and effective tool if used properly,” particularly in probes into child sexual abuse images, credit card trafficking and distributed denial of service attacks, which target businesses or governments.

Armed with fresh legislative powers, the ambitious J3 cybercrime unit at the Paris prosecutor’s office, which is overseeing the Durov probe, is now involved in some of France’s most high-profile cases.

In June, the J3 unit shut down Coco, an anonymized chat forum cited in over 23,000 legal proceedings since 2021 for crimes including prostitution, rape and homicide.

Coco played a central role in a current trial that has shocked France.

Dominique Pelicot, 71, is accused of recruiting dozens of men on Coco to rape his wife, whom he had knocked out with drugs. Mr. Pelicot, who is expected to testify this week, has admitted his guilt, while 50 other men are on trial for rape.

Coco’s owner, Isaac Steidel, is suspected of a similar crime as Mr. Durov: “Provision of an online platform to allow an illicit transaction by an organized gang.”

Mr. Steidel’s lawyer, Julien Zanatta, declined to comment. – Reuters

Trump offers little detail at crypto business unveiling

Donald Trump on Monday offered few details about a new cryptocurrency business that the Republican former president, his family and associates unveiled in a live event on X Spaces.

Mr. Trump engaged in a wide-ranging discussion that touched on the second apparent assassination attempt against him on Sunday and his shift from being a cryptocurrency skeptic to embracing it.

But neither he nor his family provided much detail about the business – World Liberty Financial – including how it was formed, financed or what services it would provide.

It is unusual for a presidential candidate to launch a new business so close to an election, but Mr. Trump has been looking to court digital asset advocates and their dollars ahead of Election Day on Nov. 5.

After previously deriding cryptocurrencies as a scam, Mr. Trump has embraced digital assets during his re-election campaign, promising to make the United States the “crypto capital of the planet” with light-touch regulation and a national stockpile of bitcoin.

Mr. Trump’s two eldest sons, Eric and Donald Jr, have promoted the project in recent weeks, promising it will “transform” the world of digital asset finance, without elaborating. – Reuters

Malaysia reports new mpox case of less severe variant

REUTERS

KUALA LUMPUR – Malaysia’s health ministry reported on Tuesday one new case of the mpox virus infection of the clade 2 variety, a less severe variant of the disease, and said the patient had been isolated and was in a stable condition.

The case was detected on Monday in a man who began showing symptoms of fever, sore throat, and cough on Sept. 11, with a rash appearing the following day, the health ministry said in a statement.

Malaysia has detected 10 cases of mpox since July last year, all of which are of the clade 2 variant.

A new form of the virus has triggered global concern as it seems to spread easily though routine close contact, leading to flu-like symptoms and pus-filled lesions.

The patient, a Malaysian national, had not traveled abroad in the 21 days prior to the onset of symptoms, the ministry said.

“All contacts of this patient are being identified, and their health status will be monitored according to strict standard operating procedures,” the ministry said.

Last month, the World Health Organization declared mpox a global public health emergency, its highest form of alert, for the second time in two years, following an outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo that had spread to neighboring countries.

Caused by the monkeypox virus, the disease is usually mild but can kill, with children, pregnant women and people with weakened immune systems, such as those with HIV, all at higher risk of complications. – Reuters

Meta bans RT and other Russian state media networks

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NEW YORK – Facebook owner Meta said on Monday it was banning RT, Rossiya Segodnya and other Russian state media networks from its platforms, claiming the outlets had used deceptive tactics to carry out covert influence operations online.

The ban marks a sharp escalation in actions by the world’s biggest social media company against Russian state media, after it spent years taking more limited steps such as blocking the outlets from running ads and reducing the reach of their posts.

“After careful consideration, we expanded our ongoing enforcement against Russian state media outlets. Rossiya Segodnya, RT and other related entities are now banned from our apps globally for foreign interference activity,” the social media company said in a written statement.

Enforcement of the ban would roll out over the coming days, it said. In addition to Facebook, Meta’s apps include Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads.

The Russian embassy did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. The White House declined to comment.

Meta’s move came after the United States filed money-laundering charges earlier this month against two RT employees for what officials said was a scheme to hire an American company to produce online content to influence the 2024 election.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Friday that countries should treat the activities of Russian state broadcaster RT as they do covert intelligence operations.

RT has mocked the U.S. actions and accused the United States of trying to prevent the broadcaster from operating as a journalistic organization.

In briefing materials shared with Reuters, Meta said it had seen Russian state-controlled media try to evade detection in their online activities in the past and expected them to continue trying to engage in deceptive practices going forward. – Reuters

July cash remittances hit 7-month high

REUTERS

By Luisa Maria Jacinta C. Jocson, Reporter

MONEY SENT HOME by overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) rose to a seven-month high in July, data from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) showed.

Cash remittances coursed through banks climbed by 3.1% to $3.085 billion from $2.992 billion a year ago, the central bank said on Monday.

This was the highest monthly level since the $3.28 billion recorded in December 2023.

Overseas Filipinos’ Cash Remittances

Month on month, remittances jumped by 7% from $2.882 billion in June.

“The expansion in cash remittances in July 2024 was due to the growth in receipts from land- and sea-based workers,” the BSP said.

Money sent home by land-based workers increased by 3.6% year on year to $2.52 billion, while remittances from sea-based workers inched up by 0.9% to $567.996 million.

“Cash remittances from OFWs have hit a new high. This surge is likely due to factors like economic recovery and improving sentiment, tempering inflation, and improved remittance channels,” Security Bank Corp. Chief Economist Robert Dan J. Roces said in a Viber message.

The Philippine economy grew by 6.3% in the second quarter, the fastest since 6.4% in the first quarter of 2023.

For the first half of the year, gross domestic product (GDP) expansion averaged 6%. To meet the low end of the government’s 6-7% growth target, the economy must expand by at least 6% in the second semester.

Headline inflation in July hit a nine-month high of 4.4%. In August, it slowed to 3.3%, returning within the BSP’s 2-4% annual target.

The central bank expects inflation to continue easing in the coming months.

“The latest month-on-month increase came after some seasonal increase in remittances and conversion to pesos to partly finance some holiday-related spending during the school vacation season amid better weather conditions,” Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. Chief Economist Michael L. Ricafort said in a Viber message.

He added that July remittances rose on the back of school-related expenses amid the start of the academic year, which likely continued until August.

For the first seven months, cash remittances from OFWs rose by 2.9% to $19.332 billion from $18.785 billion a year earlier.

“The growth in cash remittances from the United States, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates contributed mainly to the increase in remittances in January-July 2024,” the central bank said.

The United States accounted for 41.1% of the cash remittances recorded in the seven-month period, followed by Singapore (6.9%), Saudi Arabia (6%), Japan (5%) and the United Kingdom (4.9%).

Other top sources of remittances were the United Arab Emirates (4.2%), Canada (3.5%), Qatar (2.8%), and Taiwan and Korea (both at 2.7%).

The BSP expects cash remittances to grow by 3% this year.

Remittances continue to be a “bright spot” for the economy, Mr. Ricafort said.

He added that he expects sustained “modest” growth in cash remittances in the coming months as OFW families and dependents still need to cope with elevated inflation.

“The risk of an economic slowdown or even a recession in the US, as well as in other countries that host large numbers of OFWs, partly due to aggressive Federal Reserve rate hikes since March 2022, would still be a drag for OFW remittances, especially if there would be job losses for some OFWs,” he added.

PERSONAL REMITTANCES
Meanwhile, BSP data showed that personal remittances from OFWs stood at $3.428 billion in July, rising by 3.2% from $3.321 billion a year ago.

“The increase in personal remittances in July 2024 was due to higher remittances from land-based workers with work contracts of one year or more and sea- and land-based workers with work contracts of less than one year,” it added.

Remittances from workers with more than one-year contracts grew by an annual 3.4% to $2.72 billion, while money sent by OFWs with shorter than one-year contracts went up by 1.7% to $630 million.

In the first seven months, personal remittances rose by 3% year on year to $21.532 billion

BoI-approved investment pledges hit P1.35 trillion

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THE BOARD of Investments (BoI) has approved 225 investment pledges worth P1.35 trillion this year, already surpassing 2023’s total.

The value of approved investment pledges as of Sept. 16 increased by 82% from the P741.98 billion worth of projects approved a year earlier, the investment promotion agency said in a statement on Monday.

This also exceeded the P1.26 trillion in investment pledges approved by the BoI in full-year 2023.

“This accomplishment highlights both our agency’s unwavering commitment to nurturing a thriving investment landscape and in harnessing our country’s potential to be the prime investment destination for smart and sustainable manufacturing and services,” Trade Undersecretary and BoI Managing Head Ceferino S. Rodolfo said.

“We are excited to build on this momentum to work towards industrial transformation and economic growth that benefits all Filipinos,” he added.

The majority of the approved investments are in the energy sector, accounting for P1.29 trillion of the total. These are mainly renewable energy (RE) projects, the BoI said.

The government has seen increased investments in RE projects after it allowed full foreign ownership in the sector, which was previously limited to 40%.

The other top sectors were real estate (P20.28 billion), manufacturing (P12.13 billion), agriculture, forestry and fishing (P10.05 billion), and administrative and support services (P5.46 billion).

The top contributors to project registrations were domestic companies, accounting for P1.01 trillion of the total approved investment pledges year to date. This represents a 221% increase from a year ago.

Meanwhile, approved foreign investments were valued at P341.78 billion, which mostly came from Switzerland (P286.77 billion), the Netherlands (P39.58 billion), Singapore (P6.18 billion), the United States (P1.68 billion) and Taiwan (P1.3 billion).

In terms of destination, P602.63 billion of the investments will go to areas in Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon or the Calabarzon Region.

The other top investment destinations are Central Luzon (P258.68 billion), Western Visayas (P238.88 billion), Bicol Region (P142.87 billion), and Ilocos Region (P62.68 billion).

“These investments are critical to strengthening the Philippines’ economic foundation. The focus on renewable energy and manufacturing is helping drive sustainable growth, creating thousands of jobs, and improving the quality of life for Filipinos,” Mr. Rodolfo said.

“The keen investment interest from both local and foreign investors will propel long-term economic progress and position the country as a global leader in strategic investments,” he added.

For 2024, the BoI has an internal target of P1.6 trillion in investment approvals — up 27% from the 2023 level — amid a large number of projects in the pipeline, with some being endorsed for “green lane” treatment.

Executive Order No. 18 issued in February 2023 established green lanes in all government agencies to speed up the approval and registration process for priority or strategic investments.

The latest BoI data showed that there were 115 projects with a total cost of P3.2 trillion approved for green lane status as of August. — Justine Irish D. Tabile

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