Homegrown fastfood giant Jollibee continue to expand its presence in the international fastfood business market.

The latest store opened by the company was in KSA. It would be Jollibee’s fifth store in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia which is located in Al Rahmaniyah Mall at Al-Khobar.

Dennis Flores, Jollibee vice president for international operations said they are expanding their presence in the Middle to meet the strong demands for Jollibee stores in the area, and at the same time to let people overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) enjoy the homegrown treat they grew up with.

Activities for the stores opening day include the traditional ribbon cutting, which was followed by the slicing of the giant Champ burger.

They also visited Philippine schools in the area to invite kids to share jolly moments with friends and families at their latest outlet.

Filipinos business franchises are now really going global!

The search is for the country’s Entrepreneur of the Year (EoY). The SGV Foundation Inc. recently announced the opening for the nomination of the Entrepreneur of the Year Philippines in a press briefing.

The entrepreneur of the year search was started to recognize and encourage Filipino entrepreneurs who help bring progress to the country with their business.

Winner of the Philippine search will represent the country in the 2011 Ernst & Young World Entrepreneur of the Year awards. SGV Foundation is attached to Ernst & Young’s local accounting affiliate, the SyCip, Gorres, Velayo (SGV) & Co.

Ambassador Jesus P. Tambunting who won the Entrepreneur of the Year Philippines 2009 award will be heading to Monte Carlo, Monaco on June 1 to bat for the World Entrepreneur of the Year award. Tambunting is the chairman and president of Planters Development Bank.

Tony Tan Caktiong of the Jollibee Foods Corp. won the international recognition for the Philippines in 2004.

There are five award categories up for grabs for this year’s EoY search: small business entrepreneur, master entrepreneur, master entrepreneur, woman entrepreneur, and industry specific entrepreneur.

The agribusiness sector was chosen for this year’s industry-specific entrepreneur award, to encourage entrepreneurs “given this difficult time in our country” as a result of the El Niño weather phenomenon.

From among the winners of each category, one will be chosen as the Entrepreneur of the Year Philippines 2010 who will represent the country in the global search next year.

Nominees must be Filipino entrepreneurs and their business must be in operation for at least two to five years, depending on the category. He or she must still be active at the time of nomination.

The SGV Foundation will be accepting nominations until May 31, 2010. Finalists will be announced on September, and October is the planned awarding for the search of Philippines’ Entrepreneur of the Year 2010.

Bibingkinitan! The dealer of those delicious mini-bibingka, is embarking on an agressive expansion binge. Now a fast-rising Filipino food chain, Bibingkinitan! is expanding and is targeting about 100 new outlets by the end of this year.

President and CEO of FoodAsia Corp., Richard V. Sans, said that half of the new stores would be owned by the company and the other half would be franchised. FoodAsia is the mother firm of Bibingkinitan!

The company’s focus, according to Sanz, is to establish more outlets in smaller-size malls and roadside locations in provincial cities and capital town. He said they have already saturated the big malls, and their direction now is going to smaller malls and provincial cities and towns.

Aside from their delicious mini-bibingka, their products now include “pancit in bilaos” and “Bar-B-Q” for take-out. The company wants to position Bibingkinitan! as the preferred brand for parties, gatherings and take-home food packages.

Sanz claims that Bibingkinitan! is now a recognized brand. Even banks like the Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) is offering loan without collateral to its prospective franchisees.

He said Bibingkinitan! is now a recognized and established brand, with the Bank of the Philippines (BPI) even offering a collateral-free loan to its prospective franchisees.

The company has also come up with its own “Franchise Lite” package under which franchisees can pay the franchise cost in six months at zero interest and no down payment.

If you’re interested, you visit the Bibingkinitan! website.

A new law that hopes to encourage Filipinos to invest more of their savings in high yield products has been signed recently. The PERA Law or Personal Equity and Retirement Account will be implemented by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) next year.

BSP Governor Amando M. Tetangco Jr., one of the signatories of the implementing rules and regulation of the Republic Act 9505 also known as the PERA Act of 2008, said that the law took almost 10 years to conceptualize and is glad that it finally could be implemented, hopefully by next year.

He said that PERA Act would benefit especially those who are not covered by the Social Security System (SSS) and the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS), as well as Filipinos working abroad, as it would create savings investment vehicle of at least five years. It would also help develop the domestic capital market by giving incentives to long-term investments and creating more institutional investors.

Those who want to invest, who’ll be called contributors, can establish an account with a maximum annual contribution of P100,000. Overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) could inject P200,000 per year. These investments would be entitled to a tax credit of five percent.

The funds would be managed by administrators, regulated by various government agencies, who would be investing in products such as investment trust fund, annuity contract, insurance pension product, shares of stocks of mutual fund, and other investment product.

Espenilla expects the new law to encourage the contributors to invest their extra savings into the fund

It was definitely good news to customers of the Manila Electric Co. as Meralco announced that they will give another power rate cut this October.

Meralco customers will get lower bills this month as the power company reduced its rate by 11.55 centavos per kWh this October. This was made possible said Meralco vice president and utility economics head Ivanna de la Peña because of the lower cost of power obtained from Meralco’s various supplier for the month of September.

This was said to be the biggest cut for the last five years. Meralco said, at present, the cumulative decrease in generation charge was already P1.12 per kWh.

Customers consuming 100 kWh monthly will be saving P4.55 this month, while those consuming 200 kWh will be saving P15.72.

Unfortunately, after the good news on the power rate cut, Meralco announced it will implement rotating brownouts within its franchise area in Metro Manila on Thursday. The brownout was due to the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) shutting down a transformer in the Dolores, Rizal substation.

NGCP is the operator of the country’s electricity superhighway. It said the power outages will last a maximum of three hours, twice a day in the affected areas. These include parts of Pasig, Cainta, Marikina, and San Juan.

According to Meralco, these brownouts would last until the replacement of the NGCP transformers have arrived.

To help Filipinos whose homes were damaged by the recent onslaught of tropical storm Ondoy last , SSS reduced loan rates for home repairs and improvements.

The reduced rates for SSS is now at 9%, from a previous 13% per annum. The maximum amount of loan that can be availed is P300,000 and payable up to 20 years.

“We lowered the interest rate as a special consideration to our members whose homes were damaged by the storm that brought widespread floods in Metro Manila and other provinces last weekend,” SSS president and chief executive Romulo Neri said.

The loan may be used by members for major repairs, extension and expansion, construction of concrete fences and steel gates, and for installation of deep well and motor pumps. Collateral accepted are a first mortgage on the lot and house to be repaired or improved, or a joint mortgage with SSS-accredited bank.

Neri said that they have liberalized their policy, allowing members to avail of the even if they are already have existing house repair and improvement loans. However, the total of their existing loan the new loan should not exceed the P300,000 limit.

Qualified to apply for the loan are active members with at least 12 months of continuous contributions, or a minimum total of 24 monthly premiums. They can be paid either through salary deductions (for employed members) or through issuance of post-dated checks (for self-employed and voluntary members).

SSS members in the National Capital Region (NCR) can apply for loans at the pension fund manager’s corporate headquarters in Diliman, Quezon City. Those outside NCR, meanwhile, can go to the Housing and Asset Management Section of SSS cluster offices in major cities.

The deadline for filing of loan applications is December 31, 2009.