UAE now a leading tile producer

The United Arab Emirates’ Ras Al-Khaimah Ceramics is set to stand alongside the world’s leading ceramic producers, expanding its capacity to produce ceramic tiles to 110 million tons a year to keep up with local and international demands. According to company executive chairman Khater Massad, the company’s total sales is nearing the one billion Dirham mark as demand keeps growing both from the international and local markets. RAK Ceramics, which enjoys support from the Ras Al-Khaimah Government, one of the seven Emirates in the UAE, is even poised to inaugurate production facilities in India and Iran next month. At present, the company reportedly meets 75 percent of the domestic market needs and exports products to 125 countries, with Saudi Arabia, India, China, France, UK, Belgium and Greece as key markets outside of UAE. The company has recently decided to stretch its wings by investing substantial amounts of capital in Sudan, Bangladesh, China and Iran.

Teves urges scrapping of ipp’s vat perks to raise P6 billion

Reacting to a statement from the Foreign Chambers of the Philippines, Negros Oriental Rep. Herminio Teves urged Senate to instead cancel the zero VAT rating of the IPPs to help government raise P6 billion in annual revenues. The FCP had warned that higher power rates that may result from the repeal of the zero VAT rating would erode the country’s competitiveness as an investment site. Earlier, the Philippine Independent Power Producers (PIPA) had warned that imposing a 10-percent VAT on their electricity sales would jack up power rates by 0.54 centavos per kilowatt hour in areas serviced by Meralco and 0.44 centavos per kwh in other parts of the country. The solon brushed such claims aside and pointed out that the end-users have never benefited from the zero VAT rating of these IPPs in the form of cheaper electricity rates. "If electricity rates will increase at all, it will not be because IPPs will have to pay VAT on their electricity sales but simply because of their greed," Teves said. He pointed out that the P6 billion that government should be collecting in revenues only goes to the pockets of the shareholders of the power generating companies.

From the listening post: Kudos for speedy edsa repair

Now that Cavendish is back in his old groove in the city, he has been noticing a lot of road construction and road diggings from the water companies in various parts of the metropolis. Cavendish noted the DPWH’s speedy repair of an EDSA stretch between Signet Motors and Boni Ave. For a few mornings, it caused quite a surprising bottleneck before cars approached Guadalupe. Of course, the situation wasn’t helped by the usual buses that clog the area before Boni Ave. But with the speedy repair of this stretch, Cavendish and the motorists send their kudos to the DPWH for straightening out this "chokepoint" with alacrity.

Spy tidbiz: Mr. T still in ecstasy

This is the continuing saga of a local telecom firm TopCat’s extended honeymoon with his girlfriend. Jolly, our Telecom Ear-spy reported that when Mr. T’s subordinates flew to Hong Kong for a conference, they were expecting to find him there in conscientious attendance. His conspicuous absence quite flabbergasted his colleagues until they learned that he supposedly extended his Grand Tour of Europe’s bedrooms with his kulasisi. Last we heard, girlfriend has kept Mr. T in a prolonged state of ecstasy so he doesn’t forget her once they hit Scandinavia. Seeing Europe on $40 a day is heaven-sent, but to see it catatonically? Ye Gods, Mr. T must have really accrued some good karma from a previous lifetime!

* * *

Join our ring of Eye-spies by sending your intelligence information, complaints, pictures, and comments to [email protected]

All information will be strictly confidential