Article Archive (Global Business Opportunities)

There must be in the small, colorful bits and pieces that come with marking a holiday that enables them to generate a festive air and inspire joy in the heart. Whatever makes these minutiae do what they do, it seems drowned in the cheer they create and in the celebration—but who cares? That they create joy is enough and in that their reason for being and purpose seem fulfilled. Perhaps because of their smallness and because of what they’re made of, these things are not given much moment. It can’t be denied, however, that an event is much less festive and rather empty without them. Though cheer may not directly flow from them, cheer being an internal bubble of joy rising from within the human makeup, these bits and pieces do have a good part in creating the effect.

When we see the streets, public places and homes festooned with lights and display colorful ornaments, we know that a happy season is near, and Christmas tops the list. When colored lights deck street trees, wound about their trunks and branches in great care and artistry, exuding goodness, the city’s usually drab byways turn into extraordinary places and exciting promenades on evenings—especially when chill has invaded the air. When tiny tinny stars, papier mache balls, paper wreaths and buntings, and whatnots, all in attractive colors, are tacked on and hang from the eaves, shimmer and throw back light, and when a Christmas tree occupies a place of glory at home, the bubbling of cheer cannot be kept down at the sight.

Growing in tropical locations worldwide, coconut has life-giving powers to populations in developing countries in both economic and social terms. This widely known palm’s scientific name Cocos nucifera means “grinning face bearing nuts” and is often referred to as the “tree of life”. Two main varieties, the tall and the dwarf, are grown commercially for the high oil content of their copra, which is essential in the production of food and non-food products. Major production areas are mainly located in wet tropical coastal regions of Southeast Asia such as in the Philippines, Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka and Malaysia, which together account for 75 percent of global coconut production output.

More than the promise of its healing powers as many of its parts, from coconut oil to coconut water, are known for their biomedical properties, coconut is seen to hold the key to unlocking the potentials for reducing poverty in rural farming communities. No wonder it is also referred to as the “tree of abundance”. Its ripe fruit has a hard shell covered by a fibrous outer coat. In the center lies the edible kernel. The coconut shell has a layer of “white meat” which is edible and contains oil when processed. The hollow within the shell has a slightly sweet liquid often used as beverage and is known to be rich in minerals. Every part of the coconut palm can be used as food, drink, fuel, animal feed and raw materials for shelter. New products and technologies are being developed and discoveries so far prove to be promising. Specialized agencies in the Philippines like the Philippine Coconut Authority lead efforts in discovering the diverse uses of coconut, one of which is source of renewable energy.

Philippine furniture is one of the priority export products given assistance and support by the government. Export has grown at an annual average of 11 percent in the last ten years. In fact, it has made significant inroads in the highly competitive export market. Developments in the industry have also seen the increase in the number of production infrastructures and highly skilled craftsmen and manpower supporting the surging growth of the industry.

Feeding a whole nation is not by any measure a stroll in the park. Were it not for the fact that the majority of the population in a country like the Philippines are found in its rural areas and mostly living off the land, it would nearly be an impossible feat to provide food for everyone from day to day.

A simple pencil pushing would easily demonstrate this. Assuming that every person consumes or needs at least half a kilo of rice a day to survive, this would mean the Philippines, which has a population of about 80 million, consumes at least 40 million kilos of clean rice a day until the next harvest.

Energy and heat have so made themselves an essential part of the human condition – in current times as in past – that human life anywhere on earth seems inconceivable, without the conveniences and comfort that, whether people realize it or not, cannot be provided without them.

People have been so conditioned by years of living with it that, when asked what they may understand of energy and heat, the image that automatically comes to mind of which the mouth would speak would be: electricity.

The sustainable development of large areas of the world is today one of the greatest challenges. The living conditions of large part of the world population are greatly affected by the availability of energy, together food and water. As most developing countries have limited fossil fuel indigenous resources, import of energy fills the increasing difference between demand and production. Consequently, nowadays a large number of motivations and a growing interest exist for the development of renewable sources of energy, like energy systems based on biomass, in particular energy crops.

Following is a possible scheme called Bioenergy Village Complex. It is based on Sweet Sorghum crop and aimed at providing rural villages in developing countries sufficient energy, fuel, food and feed.

If overall performance at the national level is the gauge, the 3.69% reported growth in production achieved in agriculture in 2002 should be cause for optimism, if short of celebration.


A closer analysis, however, into the factors which brought in such a promising overall performance would bring out the reality that the country still has a lot to do if its performance is to pass global grades, and not just an improvement over that of the preceding year. The reality is that there remains a lot of room for the sector to improve itself in terms of growth.

All made up for export


In this era of globalization and virtual mobility of money, ideas and people across borders, enterprises are in constant process of starting, expanding, then contracting and disappearing. More so with home-based microenterprises. But we know that these enterprises create jobs faster than they lose them. They create new ones to replace the ones that met their early exit from the scene due to loss of market, marginality and lack of competitiveness.

To be told that the capacity of the earth's ecosystem to supply freshwater for human consumption is dangerously receding, when one is aware that the earth is composed roughly two-thirds of water, can be quite jarring to the mind.

Especially when one lives in a southeast Asian country like the Philippines, located smack on the path of tropical storms with their yearly load of floods, its seasons diametrically cut into wet and dry, its islands and borders circumscribed by the vast sea, it becomes quite intellectually remote and inconceivable that that magnitude of water may soon be a thing of the past.

One pre-eminent hazard that a local product meets in the wider, free-wheeling, oftentimes survival-of-the-fittest environment of the global export market is not only stiff competition, but also outright hostility. No one enjoys the though of sharing or losing a hard-gained slice of the market and naturally reacts abrasively to a "new boy in town."

Competition is good in that it pushes the product to a continuous improvement in quality and the business to a deeper concern for the consumer. It challenges the business mind to be creative and the workplace to have greater efficiency. But hostility is another matter. The new player, usually a small one, starts with a handicap, not given a level playing field, weighed down with the feeling of being an intruder, an alien, in the global game. Retailers among small- and medium-scale enterprises are the most affected, but even big transnationals find their hands full, coexisting with cultural prejudices and protectionist attitudes in foreign markets that they are trying to penetrate.

If nature and ecology conservation concerns, in their many forms, seem not able to demonstrate an adequately sustainable global response paradigm, perhaps it is not so much for lack of effort or heart. It may be that the core of each problem in each situation has not been lanced, and the right moves simply cannot be conceived unless after a process just as complex as the problem itself.

Or, the effort itself at getting to a right solution may have made it so. It could be that in the so-called holistic and integrated approach concepts, prescriptions may have become so top-heavy with human technology interventions, including the element of good intentions, as to have made these prescriptions nearly alien to the actual situation and, for that reason, intolerable to the nature of nature itself.

The Philippines has for the past decade made deliberate steps towards industrialization. From a primarily agricultural economy, it bolstered its industrial and manufacturing capability through the infusion of foreign investment and technology. This is manifested by the establishment of industrial and trade zones located in strategic areas of the country.

Industrial zones such as the Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon (CALABARZON) area, Manila, Rizal, Laguna, Quezon (Marilaque) Trade Zone, and Central Luzon Development Program (CLDP), to name a few, serve as the hubs of industries in the archipelago's effort in becoming a newly-industrialized country. As in other countries, the Philippines consequently faces the challenge which comes with industrialization-environmental pollution.

Gaining strength to succeed in the global economy

In the whole forest, there may be one economic development model left, which is worth a second look. Scarcely given another look for its very nature, micro or small enterprise is, in fact, the starting seed and the ground from which everything else bigger evolves. In fact, it can well be said that the industry giants, from whom developed nations derive their strength and affluence, all started in the same way.

Tis the season of gift-giving. The tell-tale chill in the air teams up with the burst of exciting color all around in making every-one feel young and think of gifts. Shoppers take a beeline to the malls and flea markets to get ahead of others on choice buys and to head off the panic and the traffic as Christmas day nears. Gift-giving gives a lift to the heart.