WITH more companies expanding outside Metro Manila, the business process outsourcing (BPO) and information and communication technology (ICT) sectors are seeing a very strong year ahead, according to a BPAP report.
A Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPAP) survey held during the first quarter of 2010 by Team Asia indicated companies in the sector revising their expansion plans for the year, increasing it by six percent to 50 percent.
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"We have more market and industry diversification and many companies are seeing potential in the regional areas," said BPAP chief executive officer Oscar Sañez
Regional markets seeing growth are Davao, Sta. Rosa, Bacolod, Lipa, and other cities recognized recently as New Wave Cities (NWC).
"By having these ICT plan development in their locality, cities are able to redefine themselves and create fresh business opportunities, which drive new commercial activities resulting in wealth and added value to the local economy," Sañez said.
Earnings
According to their report last year, the BPO industry earned $7 billion in revenues with 19 percent overall growth.
Employment rose to 442,000 employees, 70,000 more workers than in 2008.
"The industry is currently contributing five percent of the Philippines gross domestic product (GDP)," said Sañez in a statement.
In their newsletter, BPAP projected a 26 percent to 30 percent growth for 2010, projecting the country's revenues to hit $9.2 billion to $9.5 billion and creating 90,000 to 100,000 new jobs.
Programs for this year include a virtual BPO university that will include all major initiatives in BPAP's talent partnership program with the academe.
"The goal is to have more universities and training institutions participating in programs like Advanced English Pre-Employment Training (Adept)," said Sañez.
Adept was developed as an academe-industry response to the needs of the BPO sector and is currently being run in 20 universities and colleges in the country.
Transition
Other 2010 programs are the upcoming 2010 International Outsourcing Summit in October, the passing of the Data privacy bill and the creation of a Department of Information and Communication Technology (DICT).
As of this month, the Senate will start plenary deliberations on the DICT bill, which designates the DICT to replace the current Commission on Information and Communication Technology, which was created back in 2004 as a transitory body to a full-fledged department.
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