OH my. The Philippine Export-Import Bank (Philexim, or formally known as Trade Investment Development Corp. of the Philippines) seems to have awakened from a long sleep since Francisco Magsajo stepped in as president this year.  Just consider the deals closed (read: import-guarantees) so far:                    

• P5-billion working capital line extended to Petron Corp. by the Development Bank of the Philippines;

• P2-billion loan to South Luzon Tollway Corp. (SLTC) by Banco de Oro Universal Bank;

• P500-million working capital line extended to Seaoil Petroleum Corp. by Philippine Veterans Bank and Bank of Commerce; and

• P40-million working capital line granted to Gurango Software by Bank of Commerce.

Petron and Seaoil, of course, import gasoline for retail distribution. Under president Kamal Al-Yahya, Petron is coming up with a 10-percent ethanol gasoline product, while Seaoil, led by Glenn Yu, is offering an innovative retail hedging card for its customers. SLTC is basically Malaysian although its president, Isaac David, is a Filipino. Joey Gurango’s company expects to push through with its initial public offering in 2009.

Under Chito Magsajo, former president of Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. and former executive vice president of Philippine National Bank, Philexim has been doing the rounds of banks and clearly pushing the right buttons. For one thing, Philexim offers a sovereign guarantee, which means it is backed 100-percent  by the Republic of the Philippines (read: a good reason why the corporation is chaired by Finance Secretary Margarito Teves).  For another, Philexim guarantees are not covered by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ limits on single borrowers and director, officers and stockholders. Said another way, this means loans guaranteed by Philexim are not covered by SBL (small business loans) and Dosri (directors, officers, stakeholders and other related interests) limits.

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Here’s an interesting way for congressmen to use their pork barrel. As suggested by Philippine Association of Service Exporters Inc. (Pasei) president Victor Fernandez Jr., congressmen can fund the setting up of training centers for skilled workers that can be deployed abroad.

Offhand, here are two major destinations for such skilled workers:

• Guam has allocated up to three-fifths of its 50,000 foreign-workers (read: that between 20,000 and 30,000) requirement to Filipinos next year, when it starts its $10-billion construction project relocating US servicemen and their dependents from Okinawa; and

• The Middle East is undergoing a construction boom and needs 100,000 foreign workers.

Basically, whatever money each congressman will put up will have counterpart funding from the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority, which is headed by Augusto Syjuco. Pasei’s role is to get the graduates of these skills-training programs and get them the best working contracts abroad.

Property firms raise prices to recoup soaring costs 

THE continued increase in prices of construction materials, mainly cement and steel, has prompted property companies to raise unit prices of their projects.

SM unit eyes hotel sites in Palawan, Bohol

THE rising number of tourist arrivals in the country is encouraging the hotel division of SM Investments Corp. (SMIC) to look for sites in Palawan and Bohol for potential expansion.

Splash sets P50-million capex budget for 2008

IT looks like the beauty business is not affected by the economic difficulties that have been plaguing most industries these days.

LAST week: The benchmark Philippine Stock Exchange Index gained 23.82 points or 0.93 percent to 2,578.57 at the end of Friday’s trading.

Information-technology (IT) infrastructure solutions firm EMC Corp. is offering a storage area network (SAN) system for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that can be readily enlarged according to a company’s specifications and operations.

THE first open-source software summit opens tomorrow, with the event expected to bring together approximately 500 industry stakeholders, proponents and developers.

OH my. The Philippine Export-Import Bank (Philexim, or formally known as Trade Investment Development Corp. of the Philippines) seems to have awakened from a long sleep since Francisco Magsajo stepped in as president this year.