German-PH trade and investment remain on upswing

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German trade with the Philippines continues to be on an uptrend, with bilateral trade registering a record-high of 38.1 percent increase in the first quarter of 2015 amidst positive feedback of the country’s business climate.

Trade volume between Germany and the Philippines showed a landmark increase to US$ 1.57-billion in 2015 from US$ 1.17-billion registered for the same period last year.

Trade growth remains in favor of the Philippines with exports increased to US$860.6 million during the first quarter of 2015 compared to the US$758.2 Million during the same period last year, according to data by the Federal Statistical Office of Germany.

The German-Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GPCCI) lauded the double digit growth saying it is proof of the growing interest of German companies in the country. 

GPCCI executive director Peter Kompalla cited the latest P3.77-billion contract of German company Voith Turbo to supply railway components and drive-lines for the new 48 light rail vehicle train sets for the MRT3 of the Department of Transportation and Communication (DOTC).

Voith Turbo, represented in the Philippines by Maschinen & Technik, Inc. (MATEC) in the last 36 years is a leader in German drive technology.

Likewise, Kompalla said he is confident that German firms such as Matec Solar Power, engaged in Renewable Energy, will increase presence in the Philippines, which is rich in natural energy resources such as solar, wind and hydroelectric.

Total trade between the two countries reached US$5.24 billion in 2014 from US$ 4.48 billion in 2013.

Kompalla said the double digit growth valued at US$760 million can be attributed to the growing interest of German companies to trade with and invest in the Philippines.

In a press statement, he said the aggressive promotion of the Philippines as an emerging investment destination in Southeast Asia has paid off.

“The Philippines is indeed back in the radar screen of German investors,” the GPCCI official said.

He said many factors contribute to the growing interest in the Philippines such as governance reforms of the Aquino administration and the positive investments grade outlook by credible institutions such as Moody’s and Standard and Poors.

Increase in bilateral trade volume remains in favor of the Philippines with export growth to Germany at 16 per cent to US$3 billion in 2014 compared to US$2.59 billion in 2013.

At the same time, German exports to the Philippines grew by 18 per cent to US$2.24 billion in 2014 from US$ 1.90 billion in 2013

Kompala welcomed the renewed interest of German investors in the Philippines following a more than ten year lull.

GPCCI figures showed that top Philippine exports to Germany include data processing equipment, electrical and optical products; electrical equipment; clothing; food and fodder; as well as chemical products.

On the other hand, top German exports to the Philippines include data processing equipment; electrical and optical products; food and fodder; other vehicles; pharmaceuticals and related and chemical products.

Top German investors in the Philippines include Continental, Lufthansa, car manufacturer Volkswagen, Steag, Bayer, Deutsche Bank and SGV.

German investors are also expanding Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) operations in the Philippines for their accounting and banking services as the country becomes the world’s top BPO center surpassing India.

Some Tips to Let Kids Enjoy Their Meals At School

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Any parent with young children would admit that nothing can be more mentally draining than going through the painstaking process of preparing healthy meals for their kids’ baon.

A lot of little fussy eaters have a tendency to wrinkle their noses, make faces, or deliberately gag on their food and bring home their baon. Thus, every meal has the potential of becoming a battle between you and your children. This shouldn’t be the case! Meal time is NEVER meant to become a fight.

Revive the fun in your child’s lunchtime! Accept the stage where your kids are s-l-o-w-l-y learning to adjust to a new school-year and to eating packed lunch with foods that are new to them, and save yourself from losing your sanity over unfinished food. 

Here are parenting hacks that may help:

Hack #1: Little eaters need rules

Granted, it’s a parent’s instinct to set rules and standards for the kids. But there will always be a part of you that’s afraid of being too stiff because you don’t want your children to rebel. You know what? The whole “rules = rebellion” belief is a myth. Studies say moms and dads who set ground rules for their children are also the warmest of parents.

Don’t hesitate to start a “No-Thank-You Bite Rule” for your little picky-eaters as early as now. If they say no from eating the meal, require them to at least take one big bite or two small bites of the food. That way, you will still get to make them have some food in their stomach for the remainder of their classes. Who knows, they might realize they are hungry and like their baon after all. 

Here’s the catch: warm parents set rules. Controlling parents rub rules on the faces of their children. This calls for balance. Loosen up! Let go of the all-mighty “Clean-Your-Plate Rule” you grew up with. Stop forcing your kids to eat everything, even the small bits to pieces, just to win the power-struggle over food. 

Children know when they are full so allow them to stop eating when they want to. To avoid food wastage, serve them small portions but give them an opportunity to ask for more. Make their mealtime at school a way to strengthen your bond and instill independence in them, not to create gaps.

Hack #2: Welcome kids in the kitchen

Invite your kids to help out in the kitchen. By doing this, you’ll give them an idea what it takes to prepare their food. Letting them help and allowing them to frequently assist you in the kitchen will make them want to try and sample the food they’ve helped prepare.

Hack #3: Be creative!

Presentation is key to making a meal more enjoyable. Children, being very observant, may be more persuaded to eat if what they see looks attractive. This is also one way of masking nourishing ingredients for your little ones.

Here are the best hiding options - Grate, wrap, blend, or mix!

What comes in handy for all the aesthetically pleasing healthy meals is an equally attractive food container. Tupperware Brands introduces its Small Square Rounds to solve that for you. This is downright perfect for starting up a kitchen collection, too!

The Small Square Rounds have virtually airtight seals that keep food fresh and flavorful. With a tab on the seal for easy opening, this food container is also modular and stackable. You may use it in the fridge, bring to outdoor activities, or use for organizing. The Small Square Rounds comes in four great colors: lime aid, grape fizz, pink punch, and orange peel.

Mealtime is not just about healthy eating; it also entails taking in the water your body needs! Pair up your kids’ Tupperware Small Square Rounds with the Kids Eco Bottle. This comes with a sipper seal spout for convenient drinking and a tight-screw-on cap that prevents leaks. Made of safe, non-toxic materials, the Kids Eco Bottle has two fun character shapes: a frog in lime aid color and a purlicious (purple) penguin.

Make it a habit to prepare well-balanced and healthy meals and get your kids involved. Don’t forget to brighten up children’s lunches with Tupperware’s Small Square Rounds and the Kids Eco Bottle so you can make every mealtime at school fun and meaningful for your kids.

Tupperware Brands Philippines distributes well-loved brands including Tupperware, Baby Care Plus+, Kids Plus+, Colour Collection, Ivana and White Result.

For your questions and inquiries on how to be a dealer, log on to www.tupperwarebrands.ph, email us at questions@Tupperware.ph, or call the hotline number 867-2222. Like us on Facebook at http://facebook.com/tupperwarebrandsph.

WD adds high performance network attached storage (NAS) solutions for expert and business users to My Cloud line

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Designed for Creative Professionals, Prosumers and Small Businesses, the Four New My Cloud NAS Solutions Round Out a Full Portfolio of Powerful NAS Products Built With the My Cloud OS and WD Red Drives

WD, a Western Digital  company and a world leader in connected storage solutions, today expanded its suite of network attached storage (NAS) solutions with four new products that address the increasing demands for content storage, management, protection and streaming among prosumers, creative professionals and small businesses. 

The My Cloud Expert Series includes My Cloud EX2100 (two-bay) and My Cloud EX4100 (four-bay) high-performance NAS systems designed from the ground up for creative professionals and prosumers that need to reliably save, share, back up, stream and manage large amounts of digital data. Powered by the latest version of the dual-core Marvell ARMADA™ processor, these two new additions to the Expert Series offer top of their class read/write speeds for simultaneous, high-performance HD media streaming with up to 24 TB of storage capacity. 

The new My Cloud Business Series includes My Cloud DL2100 (two-bay) and My Cloud DL4100 (four-bay) high-performance NAS systems built to provide the reliability, security and scalability small business customers need. Powered by Intel® Atom dual-core processors with up to 24 TBof storage capacity, the My Cloud Business Series runs on the acclaimed Linux-based WD My Cloud operating software (OS).

“As the market leader in the single-bay personal cloud category with our award winning My Cloud platform, as well as in the NAS hard disk drive (HDD) category with our WD Red line, WD understands that customers need more power and more choice in NAS systems,” said Jim Welsh, executive vice president, WD Content Solutions Business and Worldwide Sales.

“We are very excited about our new My Cloud Expert Series and My Cloud Business Series NAS products that offer the performance, ease of use, reliability and My Cloud OS that customers want from WD.”

My Cloud Expert Series

For photographers, videographers, graphic designers and other creative professionals adapting to ever increasing file sizes, from RAW images and 4K video footage, the new My Cloud Expert Series products include the latest and fastest dual-core Marvell ARMADA 385 and 388 processors for high-performance media streaming, provide up to 24 TB of storage and the ability to keep files safe, secure and accessible from anywhere. The robust data management and security features let customers select their preferred methods for managing, sharing and protecting their most important movies, photos, music and digital files.

The included WD Red drives can be configured using multiple RAID options (model dependent) including RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 JBOD and spanning modes. Customers can use their My Cloud Expert Series products to centralize and back up all of their computers and notebooks with WD SmartWare Pro software for PC users, and with the Apple Time Machine backup software for Mac users. 

My Cloud Expert Series products can also serve as a digital entertainment hub, seamlessly streaming movies and music to any DLNA®/UPnP® certified multimedia device such as gaming consoles, smart TVs and WD TV® Live™ media players. The Twonky, DLNA-certified media server and iTunes® server make for simple streaming of large movie and music libraries. 

Additionally, the integrated file server, FTP server, backup server and P2P download server provide advanced data serving options. Customers can also customize their My Cloud Expert series NAS, monitor system health, manage users and energy saving features with the My Cloud dashboard, as well as use a suite of third party apps, including aMule, Icecast, Transmission, DVBlink, SqueezeCenter and more.

My Cloud Business Series

The all new My Cloud Business Series solutions allow small businesses to centralize and protect their data in the workplace and provide employees with secure access to critical data from anywhere. Powered by the latest Intel Atom dual core processor, with RAM up to 2GB, and data storage capacity up to 24 TB, small businesses have the performance and scalability, to meet their business needs. 

Secure access, protection and backup of data for small businesses is critical. Offering AES 256-bit volume encryption and multiple RAID options (RAID 0, 1, 5, 10, JBOD and spanning modes), the My Cloud Business Series offers small businesses multiple options to secure and protect their data. Customers can also use their My Cloud Business Series products to back up all of their computers with WD SmartWare™ Pro software for PC users and Apple Time Machine support for Mac users. My Cloud Business Series products can also backup themselves, either to another My Cloud in a different location or to cloud services such as Amazon S3 and ElephantDrive. Users can also use the one-touch USB 3.0 copy button to automatically copy data from an external USB storage device onto the NAS.

The My Cloud Business Series products feature many business-ready capabilities including iSCSI target and initiator, replication and file synchronization, integrated FTP, WebDAV server, SSH Shell, and Microsoft Active Directory support. Additionally there are enterprise-class redundancies such as dual power supply ports with fail over, dual Gigabit Ethernet and UPS support. The My Cloud Business Series also provides memory expansion up to 6GB, and scalable storage through dual NICs or USB.

My Cloud Business Series products are available in several capacity options. The My Cloud DL2100 (two-bay) is available diskless or with 4 TB, 8 TB or 12 TB capacities. The My Cloud DL4100 (four-bay) is available diskless or with 8 TB, 16 TB or 24 TB capacities. With Easy-Slide-Drive technology, My Cloud Business Series customers can easily install or hot-swap drives in seconds, without the need for a screwdriver, toolkit or trays. 

Anywhere Access

The award-winning WD My Cloud mobile app provides anywhere access to the entire My Cloud product family. With the WD My Cloud mobile app users can easily view photos, stream video and share, save and manage files from anywhere on their iOS® and Android™ devices. The mobile app makes file sharing and collaborating simple, allowing customers to easily email files, share files as a link and print and open files with third party apps. The WD My Cloud mobile app also integrates major public cloud services so that customers can easily transfer files from their Dropbox™, OneDrive® and Google Drive™ public cloud accounts3.

Pricing and Availability

My Cloud Expert Series and My Cloud Business Series products will be available in June through selected retailers and resellers and are distributed by Iontech, Inc. in the Philippines. 

MSRP for the My Cloud Expert Series EX2100 is Php 13, 999 for diskless unit, Php 24, 099 for 4 TB, Php 32, 399 for 8 TB and Php 41, 699 for 12 TB. MSRP for the My Cloud Expert Series EX4100 is Php 22, 699 for the diskless unit, Php 42, 599 for 8 TB, Php 59, 999 for the 16 TB and Php 81, 999 for the 24 TB.

While the MSRP for the My Cloud Business Series DL2100 is Php 19, 999 for the diskless unit, Php 29, 999 for 4 TB, Php 36, 599 for 8 TB and Php 48, 699 for 12 TB. MSRP for the My Cloud Business Series DL4100 is Php 29, 999 for the diskless unit, Php 47, 999 for the 8 TB, Php 65, 999 for the 16 TB and Php 85, 999 for the 24 TB.

The WD My Cloud mobile app currently is available for download for free from the App StoreSM and Google PlayTM.

Warranty

The My Cloud Expert Series and Business Series products come with a 3-year limited warranty for the populated products and a 2-year limited warranty for the diskless products. Terms and conditions of WD’s limited warranty may be found at support.wdc.com/warranty. 

Compatibility 

My Cloud Expert Series and My Cloud Business Series are compatible with Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, Mac OS X Yosemite, Mavericks, Mountain Lion, Lion, as well as DLNA/UPnP enabled devices. 

This news release contains forward-looking statements, including statements relating to the estimated availability in March of the My Cloud Expert Series and Business Series products. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements, including but not limited to, the failure by certain suppliers to develop and manufacture components, technology or production equipment for our products, global economic conditions and or other risks detailed from time-to-time in our Securities and Exchange Commission filings and reports, including, but not limited to, our most recent quarterly report on Form 10-Q to which your attention is directed. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak as of the date hereof, and WD undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances.

MediCard opens new clinic in McKinley

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MediCard Philippines, a leading HMO provider in the country, brings their innovative clinical services to residents of Taguig with the opening of its new clinic in McKinley Hill. Aside from consultation services for general medicine, pediatrics, OB-GYN and ENT, the new MediCard clinic in McKinley Hills also offers laboratory and ancillary services and imaging services (x-ray and ultrasound).

Photo shows (L-R) motivational speaker and management trainer Anthony Pangilinan with his wife, actress and TV host Maricel Laxa-Pangilinan; MediCard assistant medical director Catherine Jimenez; and MediCard president and medical director Dr. Nicky Montoya. 

The new MediCard clinic, which is also open to non-members, is located at Retail 6, G/F Morgan Suites Executive Residences, McKinley Hill, Taguig City and can be reached at tel. nos. 886-5285 to 86.

Here's Ekotek ! Back to School promo along with a Mid Year Sale

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With a new school year comes new challenges, new opportunities to excel, new achievements to be unlocked, and more friends to be made.

We here at Ekotek are so excited to be part of your academic journey that we have come up with kick ass bundles that will help you do just that in school! 

Talk about starting the year right! Get ready to rock the school year in style because from June 15-30, 2015, you can avail of the Rogue 2 with an 8GB MicroSD card, Ekopack 6000mAh or both for a fraction of the original price! 

You never have to miss out on group discussions ever again. Want something bigger than the Rogue 2 for note taking? No problem. You can also get the Ekotab Encore 2 with an 8GB MicroSD, an Ekopack 6000mAh or both. 

Hurry, promo is only valid until June 30!

The Back To School Promo is available in all Ekotek kiosks: SM Mega, SM Fairview, SM North, SM Las Piñas, SM Muntinlupa, Victory Mall Pasay and Victory Mall Antipolo.

No time to hit the mall? Don’t worry, you can get your Back to School goodies from http://j.mp/ekoteklazada, http://ekotek.theshop.ph/ and now you can even order via private message on Facebook!* How cool is that?

Click here http://j.mp/ekotekgadgets to know more about your favorite Ekoproducts.

*PRICE LIST:

Rogue 2 with 8GB MicroSD: Php 2,399

Rogue 2 with Ekopack 6000mAh: Php 2,899

Rogue 2 with Ekopack 6000mAh and 8GB MicroSD: Php 3,099

Encore 2 with 8GB MicroSD: Php 2,799

Encore 2 with Ekopack 6000mAh: Php 3,299

Encore 2 with Ekopack 6000mAh and 8GB MicroSD: Php 3,499

*Free shipping for Ekophone and Ekotab purchases within 

**Prices listed above are SRP, online prices may vary.

ENCORE 2 SPECS:

• Display: 7" 5points P+G Capacitive Touch Screen (800x480px, 16:9)
• CPU: Allwinner A33 Quad-Core
• GPU: Mali400 MP2
• Operating System: Android 4.4 (Kitkat)
• Memory: 512MB
• Storage: 4GB
• Hi-Speed Micro USB2.0 (OTG and Host)
• TF card reader
• 3.5mm stereo headphone jack
• Support WIFI 802.11 b/g/n

• Supports external USB 3G dongle
• 0.3MP Front Camera, Rear Camera 2MP
• Built-in Speaker
• 3.7V, 2500mAh Li-Polymer Rechargeable Battery. 3.5 hours working time (80% blacklight, 80% volume, WIFI\BT OFF, 1080P AVI video playing)
• G-sensor
• Supported video formats: AVI, WMV, FLV, 3GP, MKV, MP4, VOB, ASF, MPG, MOV
• Supported audio formats: MP3, WMA, OGG, FLAC, WAV, AAC, APE, M4A
• Supported picture formats: JPEG, BMP, GIF, PNG

• Multi-Language Support: German, French, Spanish, Dutch, Hungarian, Czech, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Portuguese, Italian, Finland, Romania, Greece, Russian, Polish, Hebrew, Arabic, Ukrainian, Japanese, Korean
• Unit Dimensions: 188.5*108.3*8.25mm
• Unit Weight: 268g
• In The Box: 1 USB cable, 1 AC adaptor (5V, 1.5A), User Manual, USB-OTG cable, Warranty Card

ROGUE 2 SPECS:

• 4.0" WVGA Display  480*800 pixel screen
• G+F Capacitive Touch Lens
• 512MB RAM
• 512MB Internal Storage
• MicroSD Card Slot + Expandable up to 32GB
• MSTAR MR6588 1.0GHz Quad-Core Chipset
• Android 4.2.2 Jellybean OS
• Dual Sim Card + Dual Standby
• Gravity Sensor
• FM Radio
• GPS + AGPS
• 5 Pin Micro USB I/O Jack
• 3.5mm†Earphone Jack
• 0.3MP Front Camera + 2.0MP Back Camera
• 1200mAh Battery Capacity
• GPRS
• Bluetooth
• 2G

Along with the Back to School Promo, we’re also happy to announce the return of your favorite Ekotek classics - for a fraction of the price. Get up to 50% off on Ekophones, up to 60% off Ekotabs and up to 15% on all speakers! Hurry! Promo is only valid while stocks last!