Palace confident on growth targets.
Malaca? expressed confidence yesterday the government can comfortably meet its growth targets of 4 to 4.5 percent for the gross domestic product (GDP) and 4.5 to 5 percent for the gross national product (GNP) for the whole year. Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye aired this optimism after Socio-Economic...

US factories speed ahead; consumers spend freely.
Byline: PEDRO NICOLACI DA COSTA NEW YORK, Dec. 2 (Reuters) The outlook for US manufacturing improved in November as factories hired more workers in response to a jump in new orders, a national survey published on Wednesday showed. Coupled with news of a solid start...

Economists predict state, local economy will remain lean.
Byline: CHRISTIAN WIHTOL Register-Guard Business Editor BARRING A CALAMITOUS war in Iraq that would send corporations and consumers into a deep funk, Oregon's economy will post modest growth in 2003, The Register-Guard's Board of Economists predicts. But it won't be boom times, especially in Lane...

Meeting our growth targets.
WHILE other Asian economies are looking at gloomy times, the Philippine economy despite all the sociopolitical pressures the country has been subjected to, is expected to perform creditably this year, its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growing by about 4 to 4.5 percent in for the whole year. ...

BoP yields $903-M surplus in Aug.
Byline: FIL C. SIONIL The countrys balance of payments (BoP) position as of last August posed a $903 million surplus, a reversal from $1.133 billion deficit in 2001, but a slight reduction compared to its $1.084 billion surplus the month before. Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas...

Current account posts surplus.
After 8 months BSP tallies $1.54 billion The current account yielded a $1.54 billion surplus following continued trade in goods surplus and net income receipts for the first eight months of the year, according to Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP). However, the surplus was lower (by 72.4...

DTI revises export target to negative 10% growth in 2001.
The Department of Trade and Industry has revised this year's exports target to a negative 10 percent growth from flat growth rate it earlier set in the beginning of the year owing to the softness in the international market. This would translate to a scaled down exports...

NEWS IN BRIEF; Peso closed at P55.165/$.
The peso closed at P55.165 to the US dollar last Friday at the Philippine Dealing System of the Bankers Association of the Philippines. The weighted average rate stands at P55.213. July import rise good signal The 1.3 percent growth in imports last July, from a...

RP's current account yields $1.2-B surplus.
The country's current account surplus widened to $1.2 billion in the first two months of 2001, compared to $1.1 billion a year ago, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas reported yesterday. This developed as the positive merchandise trade balance more than doubled. Merchandise exports grew by only 1.7 percent,...

Trade surplus surges sharply to $1.3 billion in first quarter.
The country posted a merchandise trade surplus of $1.297 billion in the first quarter, a jump of about 77.4 percent from $731 million in the same period last year, the National Statistics Office said yesterday. Total exports in the first quarter slid 0.5 percent on the year...