A pipeline of investments from the land of the rising solar is on the horizon, with big-name Japanese corporations comparable to Mitsubishi Corp., Sumitomo Corp., and Sojitz Corp. included within the roster of firms eager about increasing their native presence.
Commerce Secretary Alfredo Pascual, who started a three-day funding mission in Japan final June 19, has met with representatives from these firms to debate these enlargement prospects.
Primarily based on their conferences with firm representatives, the Division of Commerce and Business mentioned Mitsubishi has expressed eager curiosity in infrastructure growth by new initiatives the place it could possibly leverage its experience in power transformation and digital transformation.
Sumitomo, alternatively, is additional increasing its greater than 500-hectare industrial park in Batangas, the First Philippine Industrial Park.
The Japanese agency shared plans so as to add residential and business areas across the industrial park, a three way partnership with native conglomerate First Philippine Holdings.
In the meantime, Tokyo-based buying and selling and funding agency Sojitz Corp., whose native automotive arm holds the import and distribution licenses for Geely automobiles, is eager on investments within the cell tower development and colocation enterprise.
Regardless of these vibrant prospects, solely time will inform if these plans will come to fruition. —Alden M. Monzon
Extra potatoes for . . . Shakey’s Pizza
One would suppose {that a} well-known restaurant like Shakey’s Pizza would front-load its pizza shops for development since, in spite of everything, its identify bears the phrase “pizza.”
Nevertheless, the Po family-led agency, which additionally occurs to function crowd favourite Potato Nook, on Thursday confirmed that they had been really specializing in the potato fries model’s development this 12 months.
Shakey’s president and CEO Vicente Gregorio instructed reporters that of their deliberate 400 new shops this 12 months, 280 (or 70 p.c of the entire) will likely be Potato Nook kiosks. The titular Shakey’s, in the meantime, will solely get round 20 new shops.
“These are smaller investments, and there’s loads of alternatives for sharing this excellent model (Potato Nook) to MSMEs (micro-, small and medium-sized enterprises),” he mentioned.
“We’re very lucky. Numerous entrepreneurs, large and small, have been . And we’ve had an extended record of franchise candidates for Potato Nook and all our informal eating manufacturers,” Gregorio added.
As of the top of March, Shakey’s had 268 pizza retailers and 1,874 Potato Nook kiosks.
Regardless of the obvious deprioritization, the 50-year-old Shakey’s model remained “very related and a pacesetter within the class,” in response to Gregorio.
After all, altering instances name for altering methods. Gregorio mentioned they might additionally develop their multibrand retailer portfolio to cater to differing tastes and preferences, and that they already had one such format in Mindanao.
Fingers crossed that we are able to all get Shakey’s, Potato Nook, and Peri-Peri multi functional space! —MEG J. ADONIS
No hoarding of growing older rice, please
The Division of Agriculture (DA) is interesting to these trooping to Kadiwa shops: let others additionally get an opportunity to purchase inexpensive rice.
“We’re interesting to our countrymen who kind a part of weak sectors [to follow the rules on buying subsidized rice in Kadiwa stores] in order that many others will profit from this system,” Agriculture Assistant Secretary Arnel de Mesa mentioned on Thursday.
De Mesa, additionally the DA spokesperson, mentioned every family within the weak sector can be allowed to buy solely 10 kilograms of rice a month in chosen Kadiwa retailers.
“We don’t wish to repeat that type of expertise we’ve had earlier than,” he added, noting that rice was hoarded by sly entrepreneurs solely to be resold elsewhere.
The DA will quickly promote growing older albeit nonetheless high quality rice at P29 per kilo.
De Mesa mentioned the DA would maintain a dry run of this program referred to as “Bigas 29” for an eventual launch throughout all Kadiwa retailers. —Jordeene B. Lagare
Karaoke on the worldwide stage
Karaoke will likely be given a reintroduction overseas as “Everyone Sing,” an authentic singing sport present created by ABS-CBN Corp., can now be franchised abroad. The present has been just lately included within the portfolio of International Company, one of many world’s main TV content material distributors.
The sport present, which was acknowledged because the 2023 Greatest Asian Authentic Sport Present by Content material Asia Awards, premiered in 2021. It has been operating for 3 seasons now with a complete of 156 episodes.
The present model is hosted by comic Vice Ganda, who was awarded because the Greatest Leisure Host on the 2021 Asian Academy Artistic Awards.
“‘Everyone Sing’ is a joyous celebration of music and its energy to deliver folks collectively, in addition to a showcase for the inspiring work and pursuits of the neighborhood teams inside our societies,” International Company founder and CEO Izzet Pinto mentioned.
Now, the query is: Are you excited to look at the franchised variations of the sport present overseas? —Tyrone Jasper C. Piad