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The Philippine government is urging German investors to further diversify its markets and consider the Philippines an alternative source of imports and a haven for fresh investments. In a statement, Philippine Ambassador to Germany Maria Cleofe Natividad said the government was working on establishing deeper economic linkages with Germany, which must also position itself for the eventual formation of the Asean common market by 2015, when member-countries will break down the remaining tariff and non-tariff barriers between each other.

The Philippines should expect an upgrade from credit ratings firms in the near future, given the country’s improved economic prospects under the Aquino administration, the government’s chief economic manager yesterday said. “The Philippines is the most underrated country in the world,” he told a forum organized by the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines, referring the the country’s credit standing with global debt watchers Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s Investors Service and Fitch Ratings, all of which rank the country’s debt notes several notches below investment grade.

The United States has questioned the antiquated bank secrecy laws of the Philippines, describing them as “among the strictest in the world,” in the face of the global trend toward transparency. The criticisms made by two US envoys are contained in a series of cables from 2005 and 2008, and have been made public by the whistle-blower website, Wikileaks. Former US ambassadors to Manila Francis Ricciardone and Kristie Kenney, in separate cable dispatches sent to Washington, said the banking secrecy laws in the country were “hampering” transparent governance and anticorruption mechanisms, and went against the global trend relaxing bank secrecy laws.

The 35-meter-high and 8,500 square meter hangar built to make the world’s largest passenger aircraft flight-worthy had President Benigno Aquino III thinking of his own grand ambitions for the country. Its being located in a special economic zone inside the Villamor Airbase and manned by Filipinos have convinced Mr. Aquino his lofty goals are possible. “Looking at this hangar, and reading through the history and the development of the Airbus A380, only convinces me of our own ambitions for the Philippines,” Mr. Aquino said late Friday at the inauguration of Lufthansa Technik Philippines’ (LTP) third maintenance hangar at the MacroAsia Special Economic Zone, which is designed to accommodate the Airbus A380—the world’s largest commercial aircraft.

MANILA, Philippines – The local stock index skyrocketed to a new record high on Friday as favorable jobs and housing data in the United States encouraged investors to resume loading up on equities after a three-day slump. The main-share Philippine Stock Exchange index closed at an all-time high of 4,880.71, gaining 114.14 points or 2.4 percent. The local index also touched a new intra-day high of 4,886.99, surpassing the peak seen earlier this month. This marked the local stock market’s best single-day performance since Oct. 7, 2011 when it posted a gain of 3.1 percent.