MANILA -- The Philippines and Qatar on Tuesday, April 10, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for mutual benefit in the areas of tourism, legal and justice, agriculture and fishery, investments as well as the establishment of a joint business council between the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Qatari Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

President Benigno S. Aquino III and His Highness Sheikh Hamad Bin Kalifa Al-Thani, the Emir of Qatar witnessed the signing of the MOU in Malacanang.

MANILA -- The economy has more than enough profits to support a substantial wage hike. According to research group IBON, the benefits of a wage hike for workers and their families are clear and will substantially improve their welfare.

IBON made the statement after Malacanang announced yesterday that it does not support the proposed Php 125 wage hike bill pending in Congress as the economy cannot accommodate the wage increase.

The Philippine government is preoccupied with the impeachment trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona. But with the recent World Bank warning that the global economy is on the edge of another damaging financial crisis this year, how prepared is the Aquino government to address the risks on the Philippine economy?

The World Bank this week issued a warning against more risks in the global economy in 2012, forecasting a downturn that it said will be worse than the financial crash in 2008.

MANILA – A lawmaker has warned the Department of Justice (DOJ) against compromising the safety and integrity of government data. This after reports came out that the DOJ has opened its email services for public bidding. The approved budget for the project is P2,709,504 ($63,011).

Bayan Muna Rep. Teddy Casiño said the DOJ should “tread carefully” in bidding out its e-mail and related cloud services to foreign corporations, saying that the move might “imperil the safety and integrity of government data, especially DOJ data in terms of storage, access and even sovereignty.”

According to reports, the DOJ project requires 1,200 seats for cloud services that include email, instant messaging, document repository and peer to peer audio/video conferencing for one year to be given to about 10,000 users across the DOJ portfolio.

SINGAPORE – APEC is moving ahead with cooperative efforts to evaluate and identify initiatives that support freer, faster and more beneficial trade in the Asia-Pacific region.

Concluding its weeklong cluster of meetings on Tuesday, the APEC Committee on Trade and Investment and related policy groups met for the second time this year with a focus on APEC 2012 priorities, specifically to foster regional economic integration in the Asia-Pacific, establish reliable supply chains, expand regulatory convergence and cooperation, and foster innovative growth.

The initiative is just another example of adverse trends facing the sector and more of this are likely to emerge as the crisis in the US and the rest of the world worsens in the coming years

The recent pronouncement by US Pres. Barack Obama to bring outsourcing jobs back to the US highlights the dangers of relying on business process outsourcing (BPO), and on foreign economies in general, for Filipino jobs. According to research group IBON, even if it is still unclear if Pres. Obama’s proposed “insourcing” legislation will pass, the vulnerability of the sector and the government’s misplaced attention to this is increasingly apparent.

The Philippines slipped into another economic downturn in 2011. Adverse global trends are a factor with the world economy three years into what is going to be a protracted global depression. More significant however is the absence of bold domestic economic policy initiatives that tackle the country’s internal weaknesses and, in so doing, also reduce its vulnerability to external shocks.

The past year gives at least three insights to inform economic policy-making not just in 2012 but in the coming period of great challenges for Philippine growth and real development.

SINGAPORE – APEC is taking further steps to enhance supply chain performance, improve collaboration on innovation and extend opportunities for more robust economic growth and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific.

That is the aim of a diverse cluster of high-level APEC trade and investment roundtables and workshops taking place this week in Singapore.

Attention will center on delivering practical strategies and solutions necessary to achieve trade and investment liberalization, regional economic integration, innovative growth and supply chain connectivity, which are among APEC’s top 2012 agenda items.