The delay in passing the 2019 budget during the first three months of this year hit our economy hard. Public spending plays a crucial role in supporting the rapid expansion of domestic economic activity. This led to our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate for the first quarter to fall below expectations, a four-year low of 5.6 percent.
Read MoreFinance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III has expressed the hope that Standard & Poor’s (S&P) recent upgrade of the Philippines’ credit rating to ‘BBB+’ would convince lawmakers to pass the bill that aims to reform the corporate income tax (CIT) system as well as the rest of the proposed Comprehensive Tax Reform Program (CTRP) packages, considering that congressional passage of the first law overhauling taxation was among the top factors cited by the debt watcher in assigning the country’s highest investment grade ever.
Read MoreThe South Korean government has committed to help ship back to its country some 5,176 metric tons (MT) of waste materials illegally imported here last year and currently stored at the PHIVIDEC Industrial Authority premises in Misamis Oriental.
Read MoreFinance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III has reaffirmed the Philippine government’s desire to deepen economic ties with South Korea, which recently unveiled plans to pivot towards the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and expand its assistance to countries in the region.
Read MoreFinance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III has asked the Bureau of Immigration (BI) to team up with the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (PAGCOR) as well as law enforcement agencies in weeding out illegal foreign workers in the country after the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) reported last week that it had initially uncovered some 12,000 foreign nationals without the necessary work permits employed in various establishments, most of them Philippine online gaming operators (POGOs).
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