Cebu City Hall will streng-then efforts to position the city as the best BPO destination in the country amid a slowdown in investments this year.
In October last year, investment advisory firms Tholons and the Global Services publication conducted a survey that showed Cebu City as the number one city for business process outsourcing companies, overtaking the previous top three cities in India—Chennai, Hyderabad and Pune.
With this achievement, Cebu City can already be considered a proven product, said Joel Mari Yu, managing director of the Cebu Investment and Promotions Center (CIPC).
Yu said that while there has been a slowdown in investment inquiries about Cebu City, the growth rate for investments is still positive.
“We have to create the argument that there is plenty of available and skilled manpower in Cebu,” he said, adding that with over 23,000 college graduates this year, some have nowhere else to go but work in a call center “if they want to.”
Yu stressed that the city must also be promoted as a more affordable and competitive business destination.
Cost of power in Cebu, Yu said, is 35 percent cheaper than in Manila. He also said rental rates for BPO space would still range from P400 to P500 per square meter while those in the Manila area run up to P1,500 per square meter.
Yu said the BPO industry in Cebu has remained strong despite the global crisis. He pointed out that BPO companies based in Cebu employ 50,000 people and there have been no reports of retrenchments in the industry.
However, Yu clarified that if there were BPO employees who lost their jobs, it may be that their skills were no longer needed for a particular program. The same companies are hiring people with new set of skills.
Yu said that aside from the low cost of doing business in Cebu, investors are also attracted to the city because of its “friendly” local government units and a better peace and order situation compared to other cities. (DME)
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