U.S. immigration lawyers in the Philippines are noticing a steady uptick in the number of E2 Treaty Investor Visas being issued out of the U.S. Embassy in Manila.  While technically a non-immigrant visa, an E2 visa allows people with a substantial amount of money to purchase entry into the U.S. and upon entering into the U.S. under this category, E2 visa holders are able to look for other opportunities which can lead to green cards and eventually U.S. citizenship.

With regards to the foreign ownership laws by its neighboring Asian countries, the Philippines is lacking initiatives on amending its laws to respond to the current global trading.  According to The Chamber of Real Estate & Builders’ Associations, Inc. (CREBA), it is time for Philippine lawmakers to review the existing foreign ownership laws of the Philippines. For CREBA, they believe that allowing foreigners to own land in the Philippines will encourage foreign investors to put bigger and more substantial investments in the Philippines and attract the much-needed capital that will create a butterfly in the country. CREBA also stated that foreign investment will also promote additional opportunities for local businesses and employment and raise additional government revenues from taxes.

Even if the outlook towards the local IT-BPO remains positive to very positive by the respondents of a recent survey by the Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPAP) and Outsource2Philippines (O2P), both organizations related with outsourcing Philippines, stated that the BPO-IT industry needs greater visibility both locally and internationally for the industry to meet high-end growth targets.

According to the 179 executives surveyed, more than just settling at the idea that the country is being optimistic about the growth of the industry, the BPO industry and the Philippine government still need to do more than just “sell” the industry. The BPO industry should also sell the attributes and opportunities for potential offshore staff and their influencers more while the Philippine government should create a plan to increase the visibility of local IT-BPO industries and its capabilities.

Philippine real estate firm, KMC MAG Group has released its real estate market report Philippines or the real estate market research Manila for the Q3 of 2011.

The report contains summaries of the trends in commercial and residential real estate, as well as an office market overview in Metro Manila .

According to the report, the trend for the Q3 of 2011 are that rental rates of commercial spaces rose due to the increasing demand and low vacancy rates while the demand for residentials spaces surpassed the supply in the luxury residential market due to investments of the OFW and expat community. Also, the continuous construction of residential real estates has increased the overall vacancy rate in Metro Manila.