In a statement, British Ambassador to the Philippines Stephen Lillie said that “the global recession was a wake-up call for companies to diversify their export base and seek out new opportunities in the emerging world. We are encouraging UK business to look to the Philippines and find new business in this exciting new market.”

Currently, around 200 British companies operate in the Philippines with sizes ranging from multinationals to small and medium enterprises. U.K. investment last year also amounted to $298.17 million.

Despite the global recession halting the world economy, the Philippines showed continued growth posting a 1.5% economic growth in the second quarter of 2009.

The remittance scam is done using someone else’s credit card by entities falsely claiming to be remittance providers and by individuals outside of the Philippines. These entities or individuals posing as remittance providers sends money to the Philippines by illegally using someone else’s credit card.

The BSP indicated that some of these entities and people doing fraudulent money transfers recruit agents in an initial recipient country such as the Philippines, who are then instructed to send the money to another country where the final beneficiary is located.

The illegal use of someone else’s credit card, which is a form of identity theft, has risen over the years as more people adopt the more modern and convenient way of transferring money.

Circular Letter 2009-06 issued last Tuesday by the Central Bank seeks to caution the rising incidence of the illegal scheme that allows beneficiaries to collect funds belonging to victimized credit card holders.

The Central Bank was prompted to issue the measure given the technological advances adopted to ease the process of money transfer, which likewise gives rise to an alarming rate of cyber crime cases. The BSP now requires remittance centers to strictly comply with the required remittance procedures.

According to its spokesman, Intel will close two assembly test facilities in Penang, Malaysia and Cavite, Philippines. It will also halt production of its water fabrication facility in Hillsboro, Oregon and stop some operations at a facility in Sta. Clara, California. The disclosure is said to affect between 5,000 to 6,000 jobs, but added that some employees will be offered positions elsewhere in the company.

Intel has lowered prices on some of its processors, including price cuts of up to 40 percent on some of its higher-powered, faster quad-core chips.

Intel’s local unit,  Intel Technology Philippines, Inc., in a statement said, “The impact of the economic downturn on our business was more severe than we anticipated. Our manufacturing operations in Cavite will cease this year. Approximately 1,800 employees will be affected and will be offered a severance package and a range of transition services.” The shutdown will be made in the second half of the year, according to Intel Philippines corporate affairs manager Arlita P. Narag.

Intel has been in the Philippines for 35 years and is the first American semiconductor firm in the country. It has invested over $1.5 billion in the Philippines. It’s Cavite plant is located on a 20-hectare site in Cavite’s Gateway Business Park.

The exit of Intel in the Philippines is a major blow to the country’s semiconductor sector. Arthur J. Young, Jr., Chairman of the Semiconductors and Electronic Industries in the Philippines, Inc., indicated high power rates could be a factor. “We need to find out what went wrong and look at it as an opportunity to make us more competitive. We did this to ourselves because we ignored the things we could have done to make things better for Intel in the Philippines a few years back,” he said, referring to the country’s failure to convince Intel to build a $300 million facility here last year. The company eventually decided to move the investment to Vietnam.

The Department of Labor and Employment issued a statement that it would be offering livelihood assistance to displaced employees from the Cavite plant.

The 2008 surplus is significantly below the posted surplus for the same period in 2007, which was, according to DOF, due to the need to spend for the economy in the wake of the global financial crisis.

The DOF said however that the 60 percent decrease in surplus from the same period in 2007 is in accord with the pump-priming objectives of the government.

The consolidated public sector surplus is the combined budget surpluses of the National Government and state-owned firms including government-owned and controlled corporations (GOCCs), local government units and government financial institutions.

The DOF added that the surplus for the 9 month period was partly due to the improved financial position of the country’s 14 major government-owned corporations, social security institutions and local government and partly to the delays in capital outlays arising from limited absorptive capacity of implementing agencies.

DOF cited 14 GOCCs which registered an aggregate deficit of P12.5 billion, which is lower than the projected deficit of P36.3 billion. Also cited was social security institutions which registered a total surplus of P39.5 billion of which GSIS registered a surplus of P23 billion. The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas also recovered to a tune of P4 billion in surplus due to lower costs of monetary management, DOF added.

This report is closely watched by local and foreign debt watchers as it is indicative of the country’s credit risk.

The government expects this year’s consolidated public sector position to hit a deficit of P74.3 billion.

“The steady stream of remittances from overseas Filipinos continues to provide the economy with much needed foreign exchange liquidity in the midst of a challenging external environment,” BSP Governor Amando M. Tetangco, Jr. said in as statement released Thursday. The statement added that factors contributing to sustained remittance flows were the continued demand for Filipino workers abroad, specifically professional and skilled workers, as well as greater accessibility of overseas Filipinos and their beneficiaries to a wide array of financial services by banks that facilitated funds transfer.

Data released by the Central Bank does not include funds sent through informal channels.

While there are concerns that deployment could decelerate in the coming months due to the continuing global economic slowdown, the POEA indicated that the decline could be mitigated by strong labor demand in Canada, Bulgaria, Australia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.

The major sources of remittances from January to November 2008 were the US, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, Italy, the United Arab Emirates, Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong.

First and foremost is the trickling effect of the economic crisis that started in the United States and has now spread across Europe and the rest of Asia. The economic strain is widely spread across industries such as banking, retail, technology, manufacturing and construction. Call center jobs rely heavily on these industries.

Lastly, it’s customer dissatisfaction. Customers are put off by a non-American accent on the line every time they call for customer support. Customers find it hard to understand a particular accent and they could not understand the instructions they were getting. They struggle to communicate that many calls are routed back to the United States.

Dell has, for example, established a new company called Your Tech Team service to keep its customers happy. Your Tech Team is based in North America that guarantees customer service with American accents.

If more and more foreign companies will join the ranks of Dell in returning call center jobs back to the United States then call center workers in the Philippines should start enhancing their skills to be marketable again should this thing happen. It’s better to be prepared than be sorry.