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IF
you’re looking to do business in a metro city and are
contemplating Metro Manila, think again: You might want
to consider starting in Davao City, which ranks No. 1 in
terms of cost of doing business and infrastructure.
These
are some of the details included in the Philippine
Cities Competitiveness Ranking Project (PCCRP) 2007, a
biennial study conducted by the Asian Institute of
Management (AIM) Policy Center released last week.
The
study intends to help local government officials toward
the more sustainable goal of economic management while
emphasizing the role of small and medium enterprises as
the backbone of the economy.
Dr.
Federico Macaranas, executive director of the AIM Policy
Center, said that while the global challenges are
enormous, the PCCRP strives to highlight aspects that
Philippine cities need to improve on.
Need for
dynamism
The
study focuses on six main criteria: cost of doing
business, dynamism of local economy, human resources and
training, infrastructure, responsiveness of local
government units (LGUs) to business needs and dynamism.
Of these
factors, the study indicated that dynamism of the local
economy is the weakest across all urban classifications.
Dynamism is basically the city’s ability to attract
entrepreneurs, and establish a friendly business
environment to ensure sustainability.
“Dynamism will be the focus of our efforts for the next
two years. By giving proper recommendations to LGUs we
may be able to push policies to promote dynamism,”
Macaranas said.
He added
that by improving dynamism, new investments
opportunities crop up not just from Filipinos in the
Philippines but also from the community of overseas
Filipino workers (OFWs).
“There
are many businesses in the Philippines the OFWs aren’t
tapping,” he said, and added that LGUs in cities are
partly responsible for not effectively communicating to
potential investors information such as malls being
built in their respective cities.
He said
malls are a good example as they promote a clean, secure
venue that is sure to attract a lot of visitors. In this
respect, he said that OFWs can explore franchise
opportunities as it is much “easier” since business
details are more or less established.
Another
factor: through their exposure to other countries, and
in some cases, more technologically- advanced countries,
OFWs can bring some of these innovations to the
Philippines as potential business ideas, like the case
with “portable car washing.”
“Imagine
8 million Filipino abroad bringing home 8 million
ideas,” he said. OFW remittances in April reached $1.4
billion. He said if they can divert even 10 percent of
this to local businesses, it will provide a boost to the
economy.
Long-term benefits
Cities
that score highly in the PCCRP also get direct benefits
for their efforts. Macaranas said that having a place in
the PCCRP often causes a direct inflow of investments
and, in one case, the city had more investments than it
could handle and had to ask the national government for
help.
Davao
City Councilor Mabel Acosta expressed gratitude when
receiving the PCCRP plaque for her city. “It’s a really
huge honor and will hopefully encourage more people to
look toward the southern part of the country for
investment.”
Damian
Gomez, city councilor for Lapu-Lapu City—also ranked in
the 2007 PCCRP—said that the city plans to spend more
for infrastructure development. “We’re allocating a
good-sized amount, at least 20 percent of our budget,”
he said.
He said
the PCCRP has become such a respected benchmark that
many city officials, when their cities are not ranked or
rated in PCCRP, ask the AIM for help in developing their
policies.
Of the
90 cities included in the 2007 PCCRP, 25 cities were
ranked and classified according to Metro, mid-size and
small-size (less than 200,000 people).
For the
Metro category in alphabetical order are Davao,
Lapu-Lapu, Makati, Manila, Marikina and Quezon City. The
mid-sized cities rated are Cabanatuan, General Santos,
Lucena, Olongapo, San Pablo, Tagum and Tarlac. For the
small-sized category are Bayawan, Calapan, Calbayog,
Dagupan, Dipolog, Laoag, San Fernando ( La Union),
Malaybay, Naga, Surigao, Tagbiliran and Tuguegarao.
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