But as a whole, “Philippine manufacturing has been expanding rapidly in 2016 due to the strongly performing domestic economy,” Moody’s Analytics noted in a report issued last week.

The gross domestic product grew by a better-than-expected 6.9 per cent in the first quarter. The economy was widely expected to have expanded faster in the second quarter due to election spending.

According to Moody’s Analytics, “food manufacturing in particular has been performing well, as the agriculture sector recovers from the negative effects of 2015’s El Niño climate pattern.”

State planning agency National Eco nomic and Development Authority (Neda) last week urged the government to start preparing for the prolonged wet season due to La Niña while farmers recover from the impact of the dry spell brought by El Niño, which was seen to end by midyear.

“We should intensify monitoring the status of flood control projects and the clearing of drains and waterways. We also need to improve the agriculture logistics chain by constructing more bridges to connect farming areas separated from markets by rivers that are non-traversable during the rainy days,” Neda Director-General and Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto M. Pernia said.

Last week, DBS Bank Ltd. economist Gundy Cahyadi said the Duterte administration’s plan to further liberalise the economy by raising the cap of foreign ownership of local firms to 70 per cent from about 40 per cent at present while also lifting limits on land lease to 40 years from 25 years would benefit foreign direct investment flows, especially on manufacturing.

“About 60 per cent of FDI applications over the past five years have been directed in the manufacturing sector. We reckon this high interest in the sector will continue. Manufacturing is a key sector that the Duterte administration will focus on to absorb the growth in labor force. It would also fulfill the ambition to diversify the economy from an over-dependency on services,” Cahyadi said.

Asia’s largest low-cost airline group, which already has affiliates across Southeast Asia, aims to form the venture with the backing of a Chinese state-owned enterprise to help capture traffic from fast-growing secondary and tertiary cities.

Co-founder and chief executive Tony Fernandes referred to the potential dual listing without naming a location and hinted at a potential new aircraft order in remarks posted on his Twitter account on Sunday.

“Looking at more ancillary (revenues), more capacity and dual listing,” he said.

The airline group is talking to Chinese banks and potential shareholders including China Everbright Bank, one source said.

Expansion into the world’s fastest growing aviation market comes as China edges toward overtaking mature Western air travel markets despite recent slowing economic growth.

It also comes as AirAsia rebounds from recent turbulence due to lower oil prices and as Fernandes and his partner put in additional investment and take greater control of the business.

Its stock price fell sharply last year amid negative reports about its finances, but has rallied sharply since then.

A Hong Kong listing could help to raise the company’s profile, coming on the heels of the flotation there of aviation lessor BOC Aviation, and allow it to raise capital.

‘Another Dubai’

Reporting a near six-fold jump in quarterly profit in May, Fernandes said demand from Chinese travellers had recovered.

The airline also sees broad demand in markets like Korea |and Japan and has said it is |bullish on India after the country recently eased regulations on |the growth of young airlines.

Fernandes has signalled he aims to make AirAsia a low-cost giant with one-stop connections mainly from its Malaysian base.

“It is a huge business opportunity (to) use low cost to build another Dubai,” a person involved in the plans said, referring to the leading Middle East transport hub.

In mid-June, former senior AirAsia executive Kathleen Tan, seen as one of Fernandes’ most trusted executives, re-joined the carrier to head its North Asia operations.

This included responsibility for building the airline’s market and brand in China, Hong Kong, Macao, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.

China contributes nearly 40 per cent of the group’s revenues, but Fernandes said when appointing Tan that there “is still a lot to do in North Asia, …an important long-haul market”.

After a false start, the AirAsia Japan JV is expected to begin operations this half year.

The company’s longer-term goal is to have a JV in either Hong Kong or China, said another source familiar with the company’s thinking.

AirAsia has been adding more point-to-point services from Malaysia and Thailand to North Asia.

The goal is to use AirAsia’s short-haul and long-haul units to connect passengers from North Asia to Southeast Asia and Australia.

AirAsia operates over 220 flights daily to and from Kuala Lumpur, connecting to over 100 destinations in 24 countries.

It has, however, been in a spat with Malaysia Airports, operator of Kuala Lumpur International Airport, over the design of a budget terminal that began operations in 2014.

AirAsia group says it accounts for 97 per cent of operations at the terminal.

The system, which could be similar to current health advisories for haze, will be ready by the year end.

The plan was outlined in two booklets, jointly titled Climate Action Plan, announced yesterday (July 10) by President Tony Tan Keng Yam at the opening ceremony of the World Cities Summit, Singapore International Water Week and CleanEnviro Summit Singapore at Marina Bay Sands.

“The Climate Action Plan outlines bold steps that Singapore is taking to achieve our 2030 carbon mitigation plan, as well as to strengthen our resilience to climate change,” said Dr Tan.

Singapore signed the Paris Agreement on climate change in April, and aims to reduce its emissions intensity by 36 per cent from 2005 levels by 2030, and stabilise emissions with the goal of peaking around 2030.

“These are ambitious targets, given Singapore’s limited options for renewable energy,” said the National Climate Change Secretariat (NCCS), Ministry of Environment and Water Resources (MEWR) and Ministry of National Development (MND) in a statement.

The first document, produced by NCCS, looks at how to achieve the targets. A pivotal strategy to cut carbon emissions is to continue to improve energy efficiency by expanding the scope of current initiatives across all sectors, namely power generation, industry, buildings, transport, household, waste and water.

Key plans include improving energy efficiency by 1 per cent to 2 per cent a year from 2020 to 2030 in the industry sector, which contributes over half of the country’s emissions.

The energy efficiency improvement rate for about 160 energy-intensive firms under the Energy Conservation Act – which have to report their energy use to the National Environment Agency – was about 0.7 per cent per year in 2014 and 2015.

The second booklet, produced by MEWR and MND, details a “whole- of-government” strategy to prepare for climate change. “Singapore is a low-lying, densely populated tropical island state. We are vulnerable to the impact of climate change such as sea-level rise, higher temperatures and more pronounced dry seasons, as well as more intense rainfall,” said the statement.

The measures to deal with climate change fall into six areas, including coastal protection, managing the water supply and improving Singapore’s food supply resilience.

One project is to build Changi Airport’s Terminal 5 at 5.5m above the mean sea level – higher than the level that national water agency PUB stipulates for other areas in Singapore to protect against floods.

NCCS senior director Tang Tuck Weng said: “Singapore signed the Paris Agreement earlier this year, so we thought it’s timely to update members of the public on how Singapore intends to fulfil its pledge.”

Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean, who chairs the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Climate Change, said he hopes more people can play a part in this effort.

“Our goal of building a more carbon-efficient and climate-resilient Singapore can only be achieved when the community and businesses work together with the government in making climate-friendly habits and practices a way of life.”

But “externships” – an alternative job training model for students that is common in the United States and Europe – are gaining traction here, giving students the flexibility of combining workplace training with their studies ahead of the government’s plans to introduce formal work-study programmes for university students next year.

Looi Qin En, 22, co-founder of recruitment website Glints, said it introduced externships as one of the job categories on the platform when it realised that more polytechnic and university students needed flexibility when it came to getting work experience. “One of their pain points is that once employers find out that they cannot commit to a two- to three-month internship, they get rejected automatically.”

Besides a shorter duration, which can range from one to six weeks, externships are aimed at exposing students to a wide range of roles and projects. They are more exploratory than internships, which usually place students in specific roles.

Since externships were launched on the website in May, over 130 employers, many of them from the start-up community, have listed more than 430 externships.

Employers have been more receptive to the model as Glints positions it as a way to help companies build up their talent pipeline, in addition to getting help with manpower during crunch time. “What we’re seeing is that companies are using the externship as a full-time training programme – and after that they engage the students on a full-time or part-time basis,” said Looi.

Enrichment centre The Keys Global has gone a step further by modifying the externship programme to bring real-world training to students aged between 15 and 18.

Under its programme, which started last October, students pay S$250 (US$186) to S$960 for a one- to three- week work experience programme with multinationals such as Bloomberg or Autodesk, or small and medium-sized enterprises.

Students have to tackle a challenge set by the company, such as thinking up social media strategies.

The students, who usually work at the enrichment centre instead of the company, are mentored by centre staff who hone skills such as problem-solving and data analysis.

They meet company representatives later to present their solutions and get feedback from them.

“Through this programme, companies get access to fresh ideas. Students get to interact with senior management and learn how to face market challenges and take criticism,” said Ayesha Khanna, who co-founded The Keys Global.

She started the programme as she found that traditional internships are sometimes not useful for students who want to learn about the world of work.

’Helpful to hear from the young’

Vandna Ramchandani, Bloomberg’s Asia-Pacific head of philanthropy, engagement and recruitment, said it is in discussion with The Keys Global on future projects. “It was helpful to hear from young students on social media first-hand, as they are a generation that is so social media-savvy.”

About 25 students have taken part in the externship programme at The Keys Global since last October, and the centre is in touch with a few secondary schools and junior colleges about externship programmes.

Eunoia Junior College said it will be offering its own externships – which allow students to be attached to professionals, including entrepreneurs and environmentalists – to “observe up-close the knowledge, skills and disposition required in the profession or industry”.

Ernest Ng, 26, who founded hammock company Airmocks, hired two “externs” this year, with both of them working for him for periods of about a month each. “Each extern whom I worked with brought in a new perspective. For example, they thought up new ways of reaching out to private households to market our product, such as using Facebook groups, rather than doing it the traditional way of meeting up with the management of condominiums.”

One of his former externs, Nanyang Technological University psychology undergraduate Huang Hui Si, 24, said she was able to juggle two externships over the school holidays.

“It’s not for everyone, especially if you are someone who needs structure and routine. But I got to learn more about the start-up environment, and I might work at Airmocks again even when school starts, if my schedule permits.”

One of the key reasons is that Malaysians expect to be paid for the waste they send for recycling.

Asked if Malaysians were literate on e-waste recycling, MCMC head of technology development Badaruz­zaman Mat Nor said it was hard to gauge the level of awareness among Malaysians.

“Based on our findings thus far, there were a few parties that were looking forward to taking part while there were also parties who wanted incentives in return.

“This shows we are not on par with developed countries when it comes to ‘going green’ awareness and recycling matters,” Badaruz­zaman said.

EcoKnights president and founder Yasmin Rasyid, however, said incentives were “expected” as the e-waste contained precious metals inside.

“It takes a lot more to extract it out and we won’t be the ones doing it. I think e-waste recycling, if done properly and efficiently, is a lucrative business to be in because you will never run out of it,” she said.

Recycling mobile e-waste invol­ves dismantling the devices into several components, where unusable materials will be disposed of properly while the reusable ones are extracted to manufacture new products, a process known as urban mining.

Yasmin said the recycling business would be more lucrative as more people bought into consumerism.

“I’m not surprised if there’s already an e-waste syndicate here sending our e-waste to other countries for recycling.

“But let’s be honest, Malaysians are Malaysians, if we see value, we expect to be rewarded. That’s both good and bad, depending on which side you’re on,” he said.

What remains usable?

Over 90 per cent of the materials used in mobile devices and accessories can be recovered through proper recycling.

However, recycling the usual household items such as newspapers, bottles and plastics is a lot easier than recycling e-waste as most do not know where to dispose of their unusable electronics.

PhD candidate Norjulia Ahmad Mahir, 31, said she had been holding on to her old mobile phones and other electronics as she did not know where to dispose of them. “I know it has a bad effect on the environment and that’s why I do not simply throw them out,” she said.

Her “stash” includes two smartphones, a charger, a battery, a compact camera and a video camcorder, all unusable.

Norjulia considers herself an advocate of green living. Some of her green efforts include using cloth diapers for her young daughter.

“I’m all for a greener environment. I recycle normal household items on a regular basis but e-waste is a bit hard because I can’t find e-waste recycling centres,” she lamented.

Amira Suraya Azaharin also did not know where to dispose of her small electronics back in her home in Shah Alam and resorted to throwing an epilator in the bin once.

The 28-year-old has taken recycling seriously since moving to Japan for her MBA studies.

“I’m already used to separating paper and bottles back home in Malaysia but living in Tokyo trains me to do it more properly.

“I used to just separate and leave the waste at the recycling centre but in Japan, I make the effort to remove caps and wrappers. It is expected of anyone living in Japan. It’s a lifestyle there,” she said.

For huge electronic appliances and even clothes, Amira said residents needed to call the bulk waste centre to set an appointment.

“They will pick up the items from your house for a fee,” she added.

Amira felt it was easier to do recycling in Japan compared to Malaysia because recycling in Japan is part of the local culture and local authorities reminded residents to recycle daily, including posting recycling posters in residential lifts and common areas.

While some do not know where to discard their old electronics, environmentalist Yasmin Rasyid of EcoKnights said some people held on to their old belongings out of sentiments.

“I know people like my mum who still has her Nokia handphone from 1997. It’s like a nostalgic feeling with some people, so they keep their mobile phones,” she said.

Freelance actor Cheng Zhu Hann, 25, learned the hard way about keeping old electronics – the battery acid from his old Game Boy leaked and seeped into photos and letters he kept in a memory box.

“That Game Boy is my childhood.

“It was a thing I played with the most so I never thought of disposing it. I kept it in the memory box together with other things for safekeeping,” he said.

Cheng said he would go through his memory box every now and then and one time, he found the letters and photos damaged.

“It was covered in this black gooey thing and the Game Boy looked like it was foaming. I realise the battery acid caused it,” he added.

He quickly took out the batteries from other old cameras and electronics and disposed of them.

Yasmin said recycling e-waste was not only important to avoid soil and groundwater contamination but also because of the valuable materials like gold, silver and copper in the devices could still be reused for manufacturing.

“What’s more important is that we will reduce the need to mine more of these precious metals and minerals if we can recycle the ones that we are discarding daily.

“In many states in the United States, there is already a ban on sending electronic waste to landfills as the risk of these electronic waste contaminating our soil and water is high,” she added.

“We will have to review the impact of Brexit on Philippine trade in terms of what are our arrangement with UK will be as soon as that (exit) gets implemented in two years or less. Our existing agreement is with the EU, so we will have to have separate discussions (with the UK),” Lopez said in an interview with the Inquirer on Friday (July 8).

“Right now we have very good communication line with British Ambassador Asif Ahmad. We just have to find out what can we work out with them so we can maintain the GSP+ status with the UK,” he said.

“We want to be able to enter their market, and for them to continue to trade with us under similar arrangements, even if they are no longer under the EU,” he said.

The plan, according to Lopez, was to start initial discussions this year, as soon as both sides are ready to sit down and tackle the issue of trade preferences. Total bilateral trade between the Philippines and the UK was estimated to have grown by 30 per cent to some $2.6 billion last year.

The hub at the Net Park building in BGC—which will open in September—is envisioned to become one of the group’s largest in the world. The group expects to start with 20 employees by the end of this year, eventually increasing the number to 100-150 by 2020.

Partners Group is also keen on investing in Philippine private assets. Globally, the group has US$50 billion in assets under management (AUM), making it the third largest private market investment company in the world.

The bulk of Partner Group’s business globally is in private equity. It buys healthy privately-held medium-sized companies, takes management control, expands them and then sells them at a much higher value. The investment horizon averages four to six years. “Medium-sized” investee companies are defined as those with enterprise valuation of between $200 million and $2 billion.

Partner Group also invests in private infrastructure, private real estate and private debt.

Rubeli said the group would be interested in investing in Philippine infrastructure, noting that the public-private partnership (PPP) had been “well-established” in this market. Elsewhere in the world, he said the group was active in renewable energy, adding that it would be interested in wind and solar energy projects in the country.

Meanwhile, the opening of the Philippine services hub marks an expansion of Partner Group’s footprint in Asia. It opened its first Asian office in Singapore in 2004, followed by Tokyo in 2007, and Sydney and Seoul in 2008. Today, the firm also has offices in Shanghai and Mumbai and employs more than 250 people in Asia Pacific.

“We considered several locations before deciding on the Philippines as the most suitable place for the hub. Manila has developed into a thriving global business hub in recent years and we felt this dynamism offered a great cultural fit for Partners Group and the opportunity to deepen our networks in Asia,” Rubeli said.

Grace del Rosario-Castaño, a Filipino executive who sits on Partners Group’s board, said: “One of Partners Group’s key strengths as a private markets investment manager is the full suite of market-leading client services that we offer to our investors.”

According to the agreement, Viettel will support Da Nang to develop information technology (IT) applications for smart management in health and education and training in the 2016-20 period.

Vice-Chairman of the city’s people’s committee Dang Viet Dung said the agreement was a milestone in the co-operation between the city and Viettel in IT, creating a smooth path for the development of a smart city in the future.

Da Nang, which is seen have potential to develop as a smart city, needs to adopt smarter solutions to manage the transport infrastructure, environment, power and water systems, besides population to tackle rapid urbanisation.

As a crucial step towards building a smart city, the city has launched the e-government system that has IT applications, policies and mechanisms on IT and communications and IT manpower resources.

According to the city’s information and communication department, IT infrastructure is available to boost smart connections in sectors such as air control, water management, garbage collection and meteorology, as well as energy, earthquake and tsunami warning, floods and erosion and sewage, besides lakes, dams and bridge management systems.

The city is ready for the introduction of 4G LTE (Long-Term Evolution) and the Internet of Things by 2018.

The city has also introduced a paperless administration office in Lien Chieu District to ease the manual procedures for the local people.