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AYALA-LED Manila Water Company, Inc. expects the cost of its move to voluntarily waive the minimum charge of its entire client base for March plus the waiver of a full month’s bill of its most severely affected customers to hover below P500 million, its top official said on Monday.

THE DEPARTMENT of Budget and Management (DBM) sees a “surge” in contract awarding once the 45-day ban on public works lifts after the May 13 mid-term elections.

THE STATE’s fiscal deficit shrank last quarter amid “underspending” with delayed enactment of the 2019 national budget, according to preliminary Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) data which the Finance department released on Thursday.

PROPERTY DEVELOPERS and local government units (LGUs) alike are rushing to get a slice of the robust demand for real estate projects in the so-called Bay Area, with the Philippine Reclamation Authority (PRA) awash with almost two dozen applications to reclaim more land along the Manila Bay coastline.

BUSINESSMAN Enrique K. Razon, Jr. has placed the capital outlay in developing the Wawa water supply project at around P20 billion, exceeding the cost of a separate Chinese-funded dam project.

THE COUNTRY’s balance of payments (BoP) — which summarizes the Philippines’ economic transactions with the rest of the world for a given period — yielded a surplus for the fifth month in a row as inflows from the national government’s (NG) net foreign currency deposits and the central bank’s foreign exchange operations as well as income from the latter’s investments abroad offset outflows due to NG’s foreign debt payments, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) reported on Wednesday.

STATE economic managers flew to Washington D.C. last week to showcase the country’s infrastructure developments and economic reforms, in efforts to woo more foreign firms to invest in the Philippines.

THE REMAINING PACKAGES of the tax reform program -- a key support of the government’s P8-trillion stepped-up infrastructure development push, will continue to face uncertainty in the new 18^th Congress that opens on July 22, according to one legislative leader.

MALACAÑANG on Tuesday said the P95.3-billion allocations President Rodrigo R. Duterte vetoed in the original P3.757-trillion national budget for 2019 were found to be “unconstitutional.”

THE PHILIPPINES is targeting an improvement in rank in the World Bank’s annual Doing Business survey to above 95^th place by 2020 from 124^th out of 190 economies in the 2019 report, as the government said it has been pursuing reforms to improve the regulatory environment for businesses.

PRESIDENT Rodrigo R. Duterte on Monday finally signed the four-month delayed P3.757-trillion 2019 national budget into law, but vetoed about P95.3 billion in appropriations.

MONEY SENT HOME through banks by Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) -- which fuels household spending that, in turn, contributes nearly 70% to gross domestic product -- grew in February, according to data the central bank released on Monday, but at the slowest pace in six months due to what one analyst said was muted business confidence in the face of global uncertainties.