Cryptocurrency exchanges are growing in the Philippines, despite a downturn last year in the value of the virtual currencies, due to growing popular demand and lenience among regulators.

Authorities in the developing Southeast Asian country have permitted at least 29 exchanges of cryptocurrency following three that the central bank said it approved this week, according to domestic media reports. 

That count, which is high for Asia, follows a total of 10 exchanges permitted by the central bank. The Cagayan Economic Zone Authority in the archipelago’s far north has issued 19 additional permits, the zone’s website said in October. 

These exchanges feed into the development of a fast-growing financial technology, or fintech, sector in the Philippines, said Jonathan Ravelas, chief market strategist with Banco de Oro UniBank in Metro Manila.

“Fintech appears to be very advanced in the Philippines,” he said. Consumers, he said, “eventually look at the mobility of having it in mobile wallets, [which] gives them flexibility to use money.”

Uses for cryptocurrency

Cryptocurrency, most notably its standard bearer Bitcoin, became an investment vehicle in much of the world about a decade ago. But a 70% drop in Bitcoin prices last year weakened enthusiasm for crypto overall. 

​Filipinos generally pick more traditional investments such as equities, Ravelas said, but young companies are eyeing cryptocurrency to raise capital, a process called initial coin offerings. Seven in 10 Filipinos have no bank account, he added, so virtual currency gives those consumers a new option for making payments.

That population would be able to jump on a currency source that’s open to anyone and transparent because of its online transaction ledger called the blockchain.

Government support

The central bank governor may see the cryptocurrency trade as part of his bigger plan to advance the country’s electronic payment systems, analysts say.

Cryptocurrency “probably goes toward those efforts at facilitating electronic payments. I think that’s the key point,” said Christian de Guzman, vice president and senior credit officer with Moody’s Sovereign Risk Group in Singapore.

The 2016 National Payment Systems Act, among others, “bolsters the central bank’s capacity to foster the efficiency of payment systems as pipelines of funds in the financial market,” the authority’s governor Benjamin Diokno said in a speech last month.

The central bank and Securities and Exchange Commission are “working towards regulating cryptocurrencies to protect the Filipino people,” domestic Bitcoin and blockchain news website Bitpinas said in November. “This is a positive step towards adoption as this move will give users security and confidence in dealing with it.”

Said de Guzman: “A certain segment of the population is certainly very technically sophisticated.” 

First mover advantage?

The Philippines, though later than much of East Asia in picking up cryptocurrency, would eventually stand out if regulators embrace rather than restrict it.

China and South Korea have placed curbs on certain types of crypto trade. Both banned initial coin offerings in 2017, and China ordered the closure of cryptocurrency exchanges as part of that move. South Korea has at least 21 exchanges.

​Japan is widely seen as Asia’s most liberal place for cryptocurrency. That country, which has let 17 exchanges fully register, overtook China in 2017 as the biggest Bitcoin market in the world with 58 percent of the global volume. Japan declared Bitcoin legal tender in 2017.

The Philippines in its current groove should take a “first mover advantage,” said Kenneth Ameduri, financial analyst and CEO of the crypto-specialized news website Crush the Street in the United States.

“I think the Philippines understand that it’s going to be a very big deal to be involved with cryptocurrency, because it’s going to happen no matter what, and if they’re the ones to treat this capital best, the capital is going to flow there and the other jurisdictions are just going to completely miss out,” Ameduri said.

The Philippines might eventually look harder at the role of cryptocurrency in falsifying tax payments and paying for illegal drugs, de Guzman said. Taxation and drugs are already sticky issues without crypto.

Exchanges contacted for this report declined comment.
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Публічне акціонерне товариство «Укртрансгаз» почало експортувати газ в напрямку Угорщини, повідомив директор національної компанії «Нафтогаз» (єдиний акціонер «Укртрансгазу») Андрій Коболєв.

«Укртрансгаз» відкрив експорт газу з України в напрямку Угорщини», – написав він, поширивши публікацію аналітичного агентства ICIS.

«Українські газові компанії відкривають нові напрями, експортуючи перші обсяги до Угорщини. Це було тестування, але за ним може слідувати подальше постачання залежно від різниці в цінах і доступності внутрішнього видобутку», – йдеться в дописі агентства.

За даними «Укртрансгазу», у березні 2019 року Україна імпортувала 300 мільйонів кубометрів газу з Угорщини.
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In a twist, China has announced that it has persuaded Malaysia to resume a canceled rail project worth $10.7 billion. The sudden about-face by Kuala Lumpur, which had earlier rejected the Chinese-funded project, will be a big boost for China ahead of a Belt and Road Forum in Beijing later this month, say analysts.

China is hosting its second annual Belt and Road Forum from April 25 to 27 in Beijing. The event is likely to include the heads of state and governments of 40 different countries and officials from 60 others as Beijing tries to win more support for the trillion-dollar infrastructure and investment plan known as the Belt and Road Initiative, or BRI.

In recent months, the initiative has faced tough challenges as Sierra Leone, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Malaysia canceled or reduced the size of previously negotiated deals. Although Malaysia is back on board, it has forced China to accept a 30 percent reduction in the price of the project.

The reworked deal with Malaysia highlights how China is trying to face up to widespread criticism about the financing costs of its projects and concerns expressed by experts and government leaders around the world that the projects are nothing but diplomacy debt traps.

“I think China is trying to make changes. But it is trying to do too much too quickly and with too much skepticism facing it. No wonder it’s having a torrid time,” said Kerry Brown, director of the Lau China Institute at King’s College London.

Analysts said it is likely that the forum will be mostly about optics, but some real deals could be finalized. Given the heavy criticism about the projects, there will be high expectations from participants, which Beijing has said will include 40 heads of states and governments.  

“They will presumably want something more than mere protocol. Even the promise of deals is better than none at all,” Brown said.

Analysts add that, despite the criticism of the plan, which has been loud at times, the BRI has been able to attract dozens of foreign governments and has been backed by institutions like the World Bank because it is offering to build much-needed infrastructure and help foot the cost.

“The reason so many countries are interested in BRI is because China is offering something no one else is and there is genuine demand for what BRI represents,” said Paul Haenle, director of the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy in Beijing.

Still, it has not been easy for Chinese leaders to wade through the skepticism and sometimes strong opposition to the program from the United States’ and China’s neighbor, India. Critics see BRI as China’s attempt to impose financial imperialism on economically weak but strategically located countries. Many have also raised questions because of the lack of transparency surrounding the projects.

Recently however, there have been signs China is modifying the program to suit the needs of its customers, particularly those like Malaysia and Italy, which are not as desperately in need of Beijing’s financial largesse and deep pockets. Italy recently joined the BRI bandwagon after visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping provided the kind of assurances Rome sought.

“Chinese regulators realize they need to be pragmatic if these projects are to be successful, especially where there is local pushback on political and societal levels,” said Andrew Polk, partner at Beijing-based consultancy firm Trivium China.

There are still serious questions about the kind of changes that Beijing is ready to make. Some analysts believe that China might offer better financial terms and stop its practice of flooding foreign projects with Chinese workers; however, they say Beijing is unlikely to make changes in crucial areas like the transparency of deals and Chinese companies involved in overseas projects.

“Beijing could make the terms of deals public, which would be a major signal of change, but no indications of that happening soon,” said Jonathan Hillman, director of the Reconnecting Asia Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

“Greater transparency would constrain Beijing’s ability to funnel cash through BRI projects to its friends in high places,” he said.

There have been problems even in places where Chinese projects have proven to be successful in terms of implementation. For instance, Chinese companies have ensured the commercial success of the Greek port city of Piraeus. “But its political impact is mixed. Greeks might welcome Chinese investment, but they don’t want China’s environmental or labor practices,” Hillman said.

The U.S. recently described BRI as a “vanity project” and announced it would not send a high-level delegation to the forum. Analysts are wondering if the U.S. will stay away from the meeting altogether.

“The U.S. has made its position clear. It opposes the BRI. Attendance under the current circumstances with the trade war unresolved would be odd,” Brown said.

Haenle said he believes the U.S. should engage with the BRI along with its friends and partners.

“The U.S. is right to point out the flaws in the Belt and Road Initiative, but if it wishes to see them corrected, it must also put forward its own alternatives and refrain from knee-jerk reactions,” he said.
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Нацбанк затвердив офіційний курс гривні на понеділок 15 квітня на рівні 26 гривень 71 копійок за долар. Порівняно з офіційним курсом на 12 квітня – 26 гривень 83 копійок – гривня зміцніє відносно долара на 11 копійок.

За даними профільного сайту «Мінфін», торги на міжбанку 12 квітня почалися з відміток 26,75 – 26,8 гривень за долар. Станом на 17 годину вечора, коли торги були завершені, долар коштував 26,7 гривень при покупці, 26,73 – при продажу.

Офіційний курс євро становить 30,22 гривні за євро на 12 квітня. Згідно з прогнозом НБУ на 15 квітня, євро незначно зросте – до 30,24.

Свого пікового значення 28 гривень 39 копійок за курсом НБУ впродовж останнього року долар сягнув 30 листопада 2018 року. На 12 березня 2019 року офіційний курс становив 26 гривень 31 копійку, це найвищий курс гривні від липня 2018 року.
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The latest power outage started another tough week for factory owner Antonello Lorusso in the city of Valencia, once Venezuela’s industrial powerhouse.

For the past month, unprecedented nationwide blackouts paralyzed the factory and the rest of the country, cutting off power, water and cell service to millions of Venezuelans.

Lorusso’s packaging plant, Distribuidora Marina, had already struggled through years of hyperinflation, vanishing client orders, and a flight of employees. Now the situation was worse.

For the whole month of March, Lorusso said, his company produced only its single daily capacity: 100 tonnes of packaged sugar and grains. When Reuters visited on April 8, he was using a generator to keep one of his dozen packaging machines working to fulfill the single order he had received. Power had been on for a few hours, but was too weak to run the machines.

“There is no information, we don’t know if the blackouts will continue or not,” said Lorusso, who has owned the factory for over 30 years. He said the plant had just a day’s worth of power over the previous week.

Power has been intermittent since early March, when the first major blackout plunged Venezuela into a week of darkness.

Electricity experts and the opposition have called the government incompetent at maintaining the national grid. President Nicolas Maduro has accused the opposition and the U.S. government of sabotage.

Venezuela’s industry has collapsed during six years of recession that have halved the size of the economy. What is left is largely outside of the capital Caracas, the only big city that Maduro’s government has excluded from a power rationing plan intended to restrict the load on the system.

In Valencia, a few multinational companies like Nestle and Ford Motor Co cling on. But the number of companies based there has fallen to a tenth of the 5,000 there were two decades ago, when Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chavez became president, according to the regional business association.

‘The game is over’

The government said on April 4 that the power rationing plan meant Valencia would spend at most 3 hours a day without electricity, but a dozen executives and workers there said outages were still lasting over 10 hours. Generators are costly and can only power a fraction of a business’s operations, they said. Many factories have shut down.

“The game is over. Companies are entering a state of despair due to their inviability,” said an executive of a food company with factories in Valencia, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Industrial companies this year are operating below 25 percent of capacity, according to industry group Conindustria. It estimated companies lost about $220 million during the days in March without power, and would lose $100 million more in April.

Nestle’s factory, which produces baby food, halted during the first blackout in early March and operations again froze two weeks later, with employees sent home until May, according to Rafael Garcia, a union leader at the plant. He blamed the most recent stoppage on very low sales of baby food which cost almost a dollar per package, or about what a person on minimum wage earns in a week.

“My greatest worry is the closure of the factory,” said Garcia, as he sat at a bus stop on Valencia’s Henry Ford avenue, in the city’s industrial outskirts where warehouses sit empty and streets are covered in weeds.

Nestle did not respond to emails seeking comment.

Ford’s plant along the avenue was working at a bare minimum for several months, union leaders said. In December, the carmaker began offering buyouts to staff after it received no orders for 2019, they said. Ford, in December, said it had “no plans to leave the country.”

The outages have idled more than just factories. In the countryside, lack of power has prevented farmers from pumping water to irrigate fields.

Since January, farmers have sown 17,500 hectares of crops, a third of the area seeded last year, and they fear losing the harvest due to the lack of water, according to agricultural associations. In the central state of Cojedes, several rice growers have already lost their crops, farmers said.

“In the rural areas, the blackouts last longer,” said Jose Luis Perez, spokesman for a rice producers federation. Producers of cheese, beef, cured meats and lettuce told Reuters orders had dropped by half in March as buyers worried the food would perish once their freezers lost power in the next blackout.

Back in Valencia, Lorusso was preparing his factory for the new era of scarce power. He has converted one unused truck in his parking lot into a water tank. He plans to sell another to buy a second generator.

“We’ve spent years getting used to things. Then we were dealt this hard blow, and now we’re trying to find ways to cope,” he said.
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Although the skies are gray and the fields are bare, even before the first seed is planted in the fertile soil later this spring, farmer Evan Hultine knows corn is king this year.

In fact, corn is the only crop you’ll see in his fields.

“No beans this year for us,” Hultine told VOA while working on his planter.

“After about three months of the trade war, it was pretty clear that the president had long-terms goals in mind and at the time, my dad and I had talked, and we were way more comfortable with our ability to produce high-yield corn,” he said.

Corn and soybeans typically bring in the largest amount of profit for U.S. farmers each year. While many rotate planting the crops season to season as a way to improve the soil, the ongoing U.S. trade dispute with China is affecting routine decisions for farmers as they prepare to head to the fields for spring planting.

“It’s definitely influencing the way we do things on the farm,” Hultine said.

​Tumultuous year

His decision to avoid soybeans altogether comes after a tumultuous year for the crop’s prices, affected mostly by the trade dispute and resulting tariffs China imposed on the commodity in retaliation to U.S. tariffs on imported Chinese steel and aluminum.

“We lost anywhere from about $1.50 to $2 a bushel, depending on the day,” he explained. Fortunately, Hultine was able to sell about 60% of his soybean crop before prices plunged, but the rest had to be sold for far less.

Hultine said the financial assistance from the United States Department of Agriculture’s Market Facilitation Program helped reduce those losses somewhat, but he doesn’t expect the program to continue this year.

​Uncertainty persists

Now, as trade talks between the U.S. and China continue without an agreement, so does the uncertainty.

“You are watching the futures market price for soybeans fluctuate based on the latest news of whether or not we’re making progress,” said Michael Doherty, a senior economist and policy analyst with the Illinois Farm Bureau. “Is it real that we are going to get back to a normal trading relationship with the Chinese?

“Businesses do not like uncertainty. You are trying to plan for the future. Farmers can do some things to mitigate a situation in which the market is not what it used to be and the market has changed … but they need to know what that change is,” Doherty said. “The sooner we get to a point of certainty about what we are dealing with and how long it’s going to last, the sooner businesses such as farmers can make concrete adjustments.”

A record amount of soybeans still waiting to be sold is making it even more difficult for farmers, he said.

“We have more beans in storage right now than we ever had in the history of the United States. We are sitting on a mountain of soybeans,” Doherty explained. “How long is it going to take us to unwind that? We have well over a billion bushels (more than 27 million metric tons) of soybeans in the United States and we are selling it far less rapidly and in smaller volumes than we normally would at this point of the year, and so that’s weighing the market simply to just have the gigantic inventory of soybeans.”

Even though Hultine managed to market most of his soybeans, some of his grain bins are still full of last year’s corn.

Skipping soybeans

He admits the decision to skip the beans isn’t an easy one.

“It takes so much more capital to raise an acre (a bit less than half a hectare) of corn than it does an acre of beans, so we had to borrow more money, and interest rates are rising, which makes borrowing even more of a challenge and an issue, and you know input prices to produce are fluctuating with oil prices,” he added.

Increased costs to raise crops for farmers means a potential decrease in overall profits.

Hultine said it’s “definitely tight. Margins are pretty thin.”

While the USDA forecasts a modest increase in overall farm incomes this year, Doherty, the Illinois Farm Bureau economist, isn’t as optimistic.

“I would expect that we will have one of the worst farm income years we’ve had out of the last five or six years is what we’re looking at in 2019,” he said.

Hultine is hoping that everything else he can’t control, such as the weather, works in his favor so his decision to only plant corn isn’t one he’ll regret.

“We’ll see. Time will tell,” he adds.
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Corn and soybeans are the most profitable crops for American farmers each year. While many rotate these two crops season to season, the ongoing trade dispute with China is affecting even routine decisions for farmers as they head to the fields this spring to plant. VOA’s Kane Farabaugh has more from the Midwest state of Illinois.
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Amazon.com Inc Chief Executive Jeff Bezos on Thursday challenged retailers to hike their minimum wages to $16 an hour, prompting a comeback from Walmart Inc which asked its rivals to pay taxes.

“Today I challenge our top retail competitors (you know who you are!) to match our employee benefits and our $15 minimum wage,” the billionaire entrepreneur said in a letter to shareholders. “Do it! Better yet, go to $16 and throw the gauntlet back at us.”

The online retailer raised its minimum wage to $15 per hour for U.S. employees from November, giving in to critics of poor pay and working conditions at the company.

Some critics have said the hike was insufficient and note that Amazon paid zero U.S. federal income tax on more than $11 billion in profits before taxes in 2018, and received a $129 million tax rebate from the federal government.

Walmart’s executive vice president of corporate affairs, Dan Bartlett, responded to Bezos by tweeting, “Hey retail competitors out there (you know who you are) how about paying your taxes?”

Walmart, which has raised its minimum wage twice since 2015, pays an entry wage of $11 per hour. CEO Doug McMillon has said Walmart’s average U.S. hourly wage is $17.50 including bonuses based on store performance, and excluding health care benefits.

The two retailers, which are fierce rivals, rarely go after one another other publicly.

Amazon’s wage hike came as U.S. unemployment was at a near two-decade low, with retailers and shippers competing for hundreds of thousands of workers for the all-important holiday shopping season.

Bezos said in his letter that the wage hike has benefited more than 250,000 Amazon employees and over 100,000 seasonal employees who worked during the last holiday season at Amazon sites in the United States.

Amazon’s third-party sales in 2018 accounted for 58 percent of total sales, up from 56 percent in 2017, Bezos said.

Amazon has said that it pays all the required taxes in every country where it operates, including $2.6 billion in corporate tax and reporting $3.4 billion in tax expense over the last three years.

“Corporate tax is based on profits, not revenues, and our profits remain modest given retail is a highly competitive, low-margin business,” according to recent Amazon statements.

 
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One group in the United States who is not enjoying the low national unemployment rate is 18- to 24-year-old young adults who lack higher education, according to a new report.

For them, the unemployment rate is 17 percent, according to recent research by the Brookings Institution. By comparison, the unemployment rate for the general population was 3.8 percent in March.

“In theory, the path to employment providing financial security in adulthood is simple: finish high school, enroll in and complete college or training that is affordable and a good fit, gain some work experience along the way, and launch a career,” wrote Brookings’ Martha Ross and Natalie Holmes in their report. “Meet the millions of young adults who are out of work.”

The report characterized the younger unemployed as bilingual Karina, 19, who graduated high school recently and is considering continuing her studies; single-mom Monica, 23; Juan, 20, who attends community college and has worked seasonal jobs; 19-year-old Stephanie who left state university after a year because of financial concerns; Matt, 24, who has an associate’s degree but who lost his job at a car dealership when the business closed; and Amy, 22, who has a bachelor’s and volunteers as a tutor.

Ross and Holmes described the young unemployed in relation to education:

18 to 21 year olds with a high school diploma or less (37% of total out of work youth)
22 to 24 year olds with a high school diploma or less (25%)
18 to 21 year olds with at least some education beyond high school (17%)
22 to 24 year olds with at least some education beyond high school (15%)
22 to 24 year olds with bachelor’s degrees (6%)

In the first group, three-quarters live with their parents or grandparents “in modest circumstances,” sharing a median family income of $40,000. “They have limited connection to the work world, as only 30 percent worked in the past year, and less than half (45 percent) are looking for work. Relatively small shares are in school (8 percent) or have children (11 percent).” Nearly 40 percent live below the poverty line.

Seventy percent had a high school diploma.

The second group “are the least likely of all the groups to live with their parents (57 percent), and the most likely to have children (24 percent).” Their median family income of $36,000, the lowest among the groups, put 43 percent of them below the poverty line. One-third worked in the past year, less than half were looking for work, and only 2 percent were enrolled.

Sixty-six percent had a high school diploma.

In the third group, more than 90 percent have some college but no degree. (Of these unemployed, 8 percent have an associate or bachelor’s degree.) Fifty-one percent are in school, and 72 percent seek work. Nearly half (43 percent) worked in the past year. Three out of four live with parents or grandparents with low to moderate incomes, almost 30 percent live below the poverty line with a median family income of $54,000.

Ninety-two percent had some college.

In the fourth group, about one in four earned an associate or bachelor’s degree, but two-thirds of them live with parents or grandparents in a household with a median family income of $52,000. They are the second most likely of the groups to be in school (27 percent), to have children (16 percent), to be seeking work (62 percent), and to have worked in the past year (44 percent). One in three live below the poverty line.

Seventy-nine percent had some college, 14 percent had an associate degree, and 8 percent had a bachelor’s degree.

Among the fifth and last group, nearly half (47 percent) worked in the past year, and 58 percent are looking for work. Two-thirds live with their parents who have a median family income of $92,000, considerably higher than other groups. Only one in four lives below the poverty line, however, which could reflect that they are early in their career, when earnings are typically lower, or perhaps a deeper level of disadvantage.

All in that group had attained a bachelor’s degree.

English ability among all groups was not a persistent problem, Brookings reported, with 9 percent of the 2.3 million young people out of work reporting limited English skills. Hispanics dominated the groups of lower education out of work. Whites dominated the higher education out of work groups.

The gender split was not wide in any group.

“This path does not appear to work equally well for all, particularly in light of the effects of the Great Recession and the declining rates of employment among teens and young adults since about 2000,” the authors wrote.

 
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Антимонопольний комітет розслідує ймовірні порушення законодавства про захист економічної конкуренції з боку 20 газорозподільних підприємств. Про це повідомив голова комітету Юрій Терентьєв.

Йдеться про такі публічні акціонерні підприємства, як «Вінницягаз», «Волиньгаз», «Дніпрогаз», «Дніпропетровськгаз», «Житомиргаз», «Закарпатгаз», «Запоріжгаз», «Івано-Франківськгаз», «Київоблгаз», «Криворіжгаз», «Львівгаз», «Миколаївгаз», «Рівнегаз», «Сумигаз», «Тисменицягаз», «Харківгаз», «Харківміськгаз», «Хмельницькгаз», «Чернівцігаз», «Чернігівгаз». За словами Терентьєва, справи стосуються ймовірного зловживання монопольним становищем на ринках розподілу природного газу.

«Підставою для початку стало донарахування облгазами (всупереч Кодексу газорозподільних систем) побутовим споживачам обсягів спожитого природного газу понад обсяги, визначені за даними лічильників. Такі дії облгазів призводять до понесення додаткових, необґрунтованих витрат споживачами», – каже директор АМКУ.

Він додав, що Антимонопольний комітет з 18 березня 2019 року здійснює позапланові перевірки цих облгазів і планує вжити «заходи відповідно до законодавства про захист економічної конкуренції».

У січні 2019 року міністр соціальної політики Олександр Рева заявив про незаконні нарахування у платіжках за газ.

Нацкомісія з регулювання енергетики та комунальних послуг заборонила операторам газорозподільної системи проводити донарахування в платіжки за природний газ.

«Регіональній газовій компанії» бізнесмена Дмитра Фірташа належать 20 облгазів по всій Україні. У компанії заявили, що сума перерахунку за минулі періоди наведена інформативно і не підлягає сплаті.
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