PHL earns close to $2B from tourist arrivals By Ma. Stella F. Arnaldo @akosistellaBM
Special to the BusinessMirror
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THE WORLD ›› A10
BIDEN AND XI CLASH ON TAIWAN BUT TRY TO ‘MANAGE’ DIFFERENCES
OURISM stakeholders are celebrating the arrival of 2 million tourists into the country, after having suffered for over two years of poor earnings and joblessness for many. Latest data from the Department of Tourism (DOT) showed some 1.5 million foreign tourists accounting for close to 74
percent of the 2.03 million visitor arrivals from Februar y 10 to November 13. The rest, at 538,078, were overseas Filipinos. In contrast, total arrivals from Februar y to October 2019 was 6.08 million, still some way to go for the industr y to reach pre-pandemic levels. Visitor receipts from February to September, meanwhile, were estimated at $1.8 billion or P100 billion, with the peso having dropped to as low as P59 to the greenback
during the reference period. For the same period in 2019, visitor receipts were $6.13 billion, or P318.7 billion, with peso averaging P52:$1 that year. The Philippines has been receiving back-to-back accolades f r o m t o u r i s m aw a r d - g i v i n g bodies, boosting its desirability among travel buyers. The country was recently recognized as the World’s Leading Dive Destination and the World’s Leading Beach Destination for 2022 at the
29th World Travel Awards Grand Final Gala Ceremony in Muscat, Oman this month. Pa lawan was a lso recent ly hailed the Most Desirable Island (in the rest of the world) at the 21st Wanderlust Travel Awards handed out by the UK’s longest running publication, in London. The island province also landed on Fodor Travel Guide’s Go List for 2023. See “Tourist,” A2
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Wednesday, November 16, 2022 Vol. 18 No. 35
‘BUYING POWER OF OFW FAMILIES STILL STRONG’ n
P25.00 nationwide | 2 sections 22 pages | 7 DAYS A WEEK
NET-ZERO PLAN MUST CONSIDER WELFARE OF SEAFARERS–DENR By Jonathan L. Mayuga @jonlmayuga
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MORE than two dozen climate activists protested at the COP27 UN Climate Summit on Monday, November 14, 2022, to pressure industrialized nations to pay for the destruction caused by climate change in the most vulnerable nations. The protest Monday came as the United Nations’ climate conference enters its second and final week in Egypt’s seaside resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. Virginia Llorin, a protester from the Philippines, said activists will keep fighting for financing for the most vulnerable nations to be able to recover from the impacts of climate change and prepare themselves for future climate-related weather events. “We can’t wait anymore,” she said. AP/PETER DEJONG By Cai U. Ordinario
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@caiordinario
ESPITE the slowdown in the growth of cash sent by overseas Filipinos to their families, their foreign exchange gains continue to outpace the increase in commodity prices, according to a local economist. On Tuesday, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) reported that cash remittances sent by Filipinos abroad grew 3.8 percent in September 2022. This, however, is slower than the 4.3 percent posted in August 2022 and 5.2 percent growth posted in September 2021. Unionbank Chief Economist
Ruben Carlo O. Asuncion told the BusinessMirror that they computed the real peso value of Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW) remittances and this yielded an average of 7.6 percent in the January to September period and 12.3 See “OFW,” A2
HE Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) underscored the need for equitable consideration in planning the global shipping industry’s transition to a decarbonized future. DENR Secretary Maria Antonia Yulo Loyzaga who heads the Philippine delegation to COP27, was one of the panelists in the forum, “Delivering a Just Transition in Global Shipping,” organized by the International Labor Organization and United Nations Global Impact last November 9. A just transition plan, she said, should also promote gender inclusion and diversity,
noting that women compose 39 percent of the Philippine labor force and that the country has one of the highest numbers of women in senior management positions globally. The forum highlighted key actions to fully decarbonize international shipping by 2050 in line with the agenda of COP27 to provide clear pathways for parties and stakeholders to meet the Paris Agreement in limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. It also highlighted the crucial requirement in upskilling and reskilling maritime workers to gain additional skills from which energy transition will See “Net-zero,” A2
Senate pressed to ratify regional trade agreement By Andrea E. San Juan
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HE Senate should ratif y t he R e g io n a l C o mp re hensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) to enable the countr y to attract more foreign investments, according to the Management Association of the Philippines (M AP). “We have already lost 10 months of ability to compete on equal footing with our Asean and Asian partners already in RCEP in attracting foreign investments as they capitalize on the shift by a number of [multinational companies] MNCs to seek alternative locations for their manufacturing sites,” MAP said in
a statement on Tuesday. RCEP is a free-trade agreement among Asean countries and their trading partners Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea. Touted as the world’s largest trade pact, RCEP represents 30 percent of the global GDP. C it i ng t he Depa r t ment of Trade and Industry (DTI), MAP said the regional trade pact has a market of 2.3 billion people. Moreover, it covers 50 percent of the global manufacturing output, 50 percent of the global automotive products, and 70 percent of electronics products. See “Trade,” A2
PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 57.3120 n JAPAN 0.4097 n UK 67.3760 n HK 7.3140 n CHINA 8.1052 n SINGAPORE 41.7604 n AUSTRALIA 38.3761 n EU 59.1976 n KOREA 0.0433 n SAUDI ARABIA 15.2499 Source:
BSP (15 November 2022)