Filipino couture shines on Golden Globes red carpet

An estimated 20 million viewers saw Sofia Vergara’s caviar beaded strapless gown make Philippine fashion history last Monday at the 70th Golden Globe Awards.

Dubai-based designer Michael Cinco created the $10,000 black two-ply silk tulle gown encrusted with flat sequins, which took 100 man-hours to embellish.

Vergara, with her beauty queen stance and Colombian energy, placed third in the Best Dressed List by People Magazine, and consistently in the Top Five Choices in many countries’ broadsheets and blog sites, including Yahoo!, E! News, NY Times, the Examiner and the Hollywood Reporter.

“It’s by Michael Cinco, he’s a new designer for me, I usually stay away from black but when I saw it and put it on, it was amazing,” proclaimed Vergara to Ryan Seacrest, as her towering sexual presence sent a shout-out to the world that Filipino fashion design had finally arrived in Hollywood. An hour after she red-carpeted on cable, 500 tweets a minute confirmed its knockout success.

Personally, I liked it, because it looked comfortable yet Old Hollywood glamorous. It was a perfect fit, like Vergara was poured into the gown. She looked happy, too.

“It was Facebook that got me hooked up with my partner in Los Angeles, Antonio Esteban, who runs Style PR, with a showroom in Beverly Hills that works closely with top stylists, especially during awards season,” said Michael in a phone patch PDI exclusive interview.

“Esteban saw some of my designs, so he sent me a PM on Facebook, and that’s what got the ball rolling. Next thing, we were talking, and from my 2013 couture collection, I sent cocktail dresses and long gowns.

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PH boom fuels resurgence in luxury hotel market

one of the luxury real estate project in manila located at makati city

The busy skyline of Bonifacio Global City.

 

Having the second fastest growing economy in Asia and a stable political environment, the Philippines experienced a surge in investments, particularly in the high end luxury sector of its hospitality market, according to a report by C9 Hotelworks.

In a recent report, the hotel industry consulting firm noted that escalating room rates and strong occupancy rates are also setting the stage for “dramatic future growth” of the sector.

“Step back in time three decades and hotel headlines would be surprisingly similar to those today,” C9 Hotelworks managing director Bill Barnett said in an interview. “Manila Bay is asserting itself as a tourism hub in Metro Manila, [while] a new business district flexes its muscles within the competitive hotel landscape.”

He noted, however, some key differences between the hotel boom of the present day and that of the past.

“This time around it is Manila Bay, featuring the evolution of Pagcor Entertainment City and Resorts World, while the new central business district is not Makati, but neighboring Bonifacio City,” he said. “This is the new storyboard of Mega Manila.”

With a gross domestic product growth rate of 7.1 percent in the third quarter, the Philippines is “enjoying a fast-tracked journey back to the future,” Barnett said, noting that the hospitality sector is one of the frontline beneficiaries.

C9 Hotelworks’ report points to an aggressive pipeline of growth and investment in the luxury sector, with a total of 5,797 rooms opening in the upper tier of the market over the next five years. This represents a growth of 37 percent to existing supply.

These new hotels will include the introduction, expansion or return of internationally renowned brands such as Raffles, Fairmont, Grand Hyatt, Shangri-La, Sheraton and Westin.

As an early indication of future trends, C9 Hotelworks’ hospitality research noted that overall average room rates already rose 6 percent in 2011, while occupancy of luxury accommodation stood at 72 percent during the same period.

In 2011, Metro Manila had a total of 15,567 hotel rooms, with 57 percent of these being in the upscale tier.

“Suddenly, there is now significant movement at the top end of the market where luxury supply grew at only 3.2 percent between 2004 to 2011,” the report pointed out.

Barnett said that the Aquino administration and the private sector could be credited with much of the growth by executing a coordinated and effective strategy of selecting a limited number of massive infrastructure projects to focus on. This strategy, in turn, has created major demand for luxury accommodation.

“Present day trading remains strongly leveraged with corporate travelers who, combined with the meeting and incentive segment, command 78 percent of total hotel room nights,” Barnett said.

Looking forward to 2013 and beyond, he added the urban spread of Metro Manila into new areas—such as Ayala Land’s acquisition of the sprawling Foot Terminal Inc. property in Taguig City—would create new hotel micromarkets, which could be good news for the hospitality sector overall.

“In the new Asian age, when the East is now embracing a rising and increasingly affluent middle class, even Donald Trump has come to the table with his luxury namesake brand in the new Mega Manila,” Barnett said.

Philippine market top 3 JP Morgan picks for 2013

By Doris C. Dumlao in Manila/Philippine Daily Inquirer | Asia News Network – Tue, Nov 27, 2012

Manila (Philippine Daily Inquirer/ANN) – Global investment bank JP Morgan has picked the Philippines as one of its three most-favoured stock markets for 2013, marking the fourth straight year that the local bourse is expected to outperform most of its regional peers.
“We are still very bullish for 2013,” JP Morgan Securities Philippines Inc. executive director and head of equity research Gilbert Lopez said in a press briefing yesterday. The two other Asian markets seen by JP Morgan as top market picks for next year are Thailand and India, citing favourable demographics as a common denominator with the Philippines.

At the beginning of 2012, JP Morgan’s emerging market and Asian equity strategist Arian Mowat also cited the Philippines as among its most favoured markets along with Thailand and Indonesia. This year, he said the Philippines was still on Mowat’s favoured list.

Lopez said JP Morgan had an “overweight” rating on Philippine equities for the last four years. An “overweight” rating refers to a recommendation to buy in excess of the prescribed weight in a closely followed index like MSCI Asia ex-Japan, which JP Morgan expects to rise by 15 per cent next year.

JP Morgan does not target local indices like the Philippine Stock Exchange index but Lopez said that based on its price targets on monitored stocks, the PSEi might have room to rise by another 20-25 per cent from current levels. The company covers 30 Philippine stocks, at least 27 of which are part of the PSEi.

“The reason we like the Philippines is that in a global context, earnings environment is still good,” Lopez said, adding that JP Morgan was expecting average earnings per share in this market to grow at a faster pace of 17 per cent next year from about 12 per cent this year.

Jaguar unveils XKR-S in the Philippines

 

 

 

 

 

 

By Alex Villafania

Following the success of the first ever Jaguar Drift Fest, the Philippine office of British luxry carmaker Jaguar recently launched the XKR-S, which comes from the same pedigree as Jaguar’s prestigious XK series that was launched about seven years ago.

Touted as its most powerful production sports car, the Jaguar XKR-S is endowed with a more powerful third generation 550-horsepower supercharged V8 engine. The convertible XKR-S’s body has also been given a fresh, aerodynamic streak that should keep the car stable even with the top down.  The XKR-S’s lines are svelte and is said to reduce speed lift by as much as 26 percent.

The Jaguar is actually lighter than it looks; with a rigid aluminum body, the XKR-S only weighs 1,800 kilograms. The 20-inch alloy wheels are also equally lightweight and have been designed to optimize body control, traction, and grip.

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After the e-jeepney, prototype of e-trike mock up unveiled

By Alexander Villafania

Several months after the start a major electric vehicle initiative, a prototype of the winning electric tricycle (e-trike) design was unveiled by the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

The prototype was created by Japanese developer Itchiro Hatayama based on the design of a winning entry in the DOE’s E-Trike Design competition. The basic requirement for the design was for the vehicle to be a three-wheeled transport and have a maximum capacity of six passengers (excluding driver).

“The winning entry was enhanced considering the aspects of safety, functionality and production friendliness. Also taken into consideration were the terrain, passenger capacity and other local operating conditions of a tricycle, whether electric or not. An advertising space was even incorporated into the design for the operators to maximize revenues out of owning and operating an e-trike,” according to Rommel Juan, president of the Electric Vehicle Association of the Philippines.

Juan said that the next phase of the project is to schedule technical meetings with engineers from the DOE. Among the topics to be discussed are the e-trike’s later design, safety and other functional elements.

Several types of electric engines are available locally and can be incorporated into the design of the e-trike, the industry group also said.

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Phl smartphone growth fastest in Southeast Asia

1 out of 4 Filipinos now owns a smartphone

 

MANILA, Philippines –  The Philippines is now considered as the fastest-growing market for smartphones in Southeast Asia, with a staggering 326 percent increase in smartphone sales over the last 12 months.

According to Singapore-based research firm GfK, the country recorded the highest jump in smartphone market share among its neighboring countries in the region, growing from nine to 24 percent.

The growth in the country was significantly higher than the 78 percent growth posted in Southeast Asia’s seven major markets, namely the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Cambodia.

“Feature phones still reign as the more prevalent mobile phone type used by consumers in the region’s emerging markets,” GfK digital technology account director Gerard Tan said in a statement. “However, smartphone adoption is escalating at a rapid pace.”

In July this year, GfK reported that one of four Filipinos own a smartphone, driven by the increasing affordability of smartphone devices across the country.

A separate GfK report revealed that Filipino consumers bought five times as many smartphones in the first five months of this year compared to a year ago, bringing smartphone sales to almost 1.7 million units as of May this year.

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PH is among Southeast Asia’s ‘New Tigers’

 

The Philippines’ recovery from the Asian financial crisis and its high potential for growth has prodded a business website to name it one of the “New Tigers” in Southeast Asia.

The Philippines, as well as Indonesia, have “come of age” and are “poised to drive future growth and grab more economic power,”Market Watch said.

“In an economically vibrant Southeast Asia, Indonesia and the Philippines stand out as the region’s ‘New Tigers’ with the potential to leave a bigger imprint on global growth for years to come while the developed world struggles with excess debt and traditional regional heavyweights China and India lose momentum,”  it added.

This review of the Philippines is the latest in a string of recent positive assessments and forecasts, most of them noting deep-seated governance reforms and its impact on ease of doing business.

The Philippines and Indonesia’s edge over other countries in the region, Market Watch said, include “large and young labor force, an expanding middle class and… elected governments with policies inspiring investor confidence.”

Sturdy banks and enough foreign exchange reserves also put the countries at an advantage, it added.

National debt also remains low in the Philippines and Indonesia compared to countries in the West, “leaving both enough room to boost their economies in case of need,” the report said.

Market Watch also noted that the two countries’ stock markets “are among the world’s best performing since the end of 2008.”

Marking the two countries’ takeoff, Market Watch said, is their leap from borrower to lender status in the International Monetary Fund, with each pledging $1 billion to replenish the multilateral bank’s funds.

This, as Market Watch noted that the IMF bailed out the two countries during the Asian Financial Crisis of the late 1990s.

These developments have not escaped the view of global investors which are now turning their heads toward the Philippines and Indonesia, Market Watch said.

“Both markets have been a popular choice for investors since 2009 and have extended a solid upward run with sharp gains so far this year,” it noted.

Market Watch highlighted the Philippines’ status as second to Thailand’s best-performing stock exchange in Asia so far this year, rising 18 percent. Indonesia’s Stock Exchange meanwhile gained 4 percent.

“Signaling the strength of foreign investor interest in both the Philippines and Indonesia, new products have been developed to provide overseas investors with more options to access those markets,” it noted.

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