MANILA – The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas is confident that inflation this year will remain within the three to five percent goal despite a faster rate of three percent in April 2012 from the previous month’s 2.6 percent.

The National Statistics Office traced the rise in the inflation rate to the higher increases in all commodity groups. Year-ago inflation rate is higher at 4.7 percent.

Although at the highest end of the central bank’s inflation forecast of 2.1 to three percent for April 2012, the actual inflation rate in the fourth month this year “still points to a within-target full year average,” BSP Governor Amando Tetangco Jr. said in a text message to reporters Friday.

‘Cooperatives vital in
job creation, dev’t’

Cooperatives must be exempted from paying taxes because of their job generation that puts them in the sidelines of the development process and helping communities in disasters and calamities, Orland Ravanera, cooperative development authority director, claimed yesterday.

Ravanera was in Bacolod City as guest in the 16th General Assembly of Federation of People’ Sustainable Development Cooperatives at L’Fisher Hotel, Bacolod.

Former Senator Agapito “Butz” Aquino, meanwhile, lauded the cooperative housing and sustainable community project of the FPSDC, yesterday, for providing 750 houses to the victims of typhoon Sendong in Cagayan de Oro and Iligan cities.

UCPB net profit
grows to P884M

After the formal extension of its corporate life as granted by its shareholders recently, the United Coconut Planters Bank announced in a press release that its income grew by 34 percent to P883.7 million from a year ago for the first quarter of 2012 as its consolidated net owing it to the strong trading gains and high interest income posted by its business units.

“Businesses normally slow down during this period but we still managed to sustain our growth in 2011. Our strong first quarter performance bodes well for the future of the bank,” UCPB president and CEO Jeronimo Kilayko said.

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