What’s waste for many can be gold for others. Farmers from Northern Samar and Bicol are learning how to turn the lowly coconut husk into a major source of income, with the help of non-government organizations in the area.
Veronica F. Villavicencio of the Peace and Equity Foundation explains how Filipinos can make money from coconut husks. Watch this video that I took during a recent Good News Kapihan press conference.
In case you don’t know this yet, state-owned Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) is offering forward foreign exchange rate protection under its hedging facility for exporters.
This is quite helpful of DBP president & chief executive officer Reynaldo G. David. At least, here is something concrete that affected sectors can do to mitigate the impact of the peso appreciation.
As of last week, handicraft manufacturers, aquaculture traders, those who are in the carageenan and garments businesses who sell to the United States, Europe, Japan, Chile and India are some of those who first applied for the facility.
The World Bank believes it has the answers. The Philippine Daily Inquirer’s banner story today shows a list of measures the International Finance Corp., the private sector development arm of the World Bank, is urging the government to adopt.
Do you agree with the IFC? It says the Philippines is weak especially in the areas of starting a business, property registration and ability to access credit.
In a nutshell, IFC suggests that the government should:
The proposal on the credit information bureau is particularly interesting because at the moment, lenders are keeping their own counsel on who is creditworthy or not. Why would they share that kind of information with their peers, no matter what they say publicly about “working together for the good of the industry.” The absence of a good database on potential borrowers makes it easier or bad borrowers to get a loan and raises banks’ past due loans.
Who is the end loser here? The banks to a certain extent because their image gets hurt, but more so good borrowers who get higher interest rates and a longer time to process loans because of more documentary requirements and credit history checking. At least, that’s how bankers explain the situation.
Unfortunately, getting that reform done will depend on Congress, where the road to an important bill can twist and turn like a supertyphoon dancing with another supertyphoon.
