ZAMBOANGA CITY—More business- process outsourcing (BPO) offices are likely to open in Mindanao as key cities like General Santos continue to develop business environments that are particularly attractive to information-technology (IT) firms, industry experts noted.

With this development, Maria Jamea Garcia, Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPAP) executive director for talent development, said Mindanao and its major cities should be aggressive in their campaign to improve the talent, infrastructure and environment needed to advance in the sector of IT and IT-enabled services.

A  BPAP study showed the Philippines is well-positioned to corner a 10-percent share of the global outsourcing and offshoring market by 2010, with potential revenues of about $13 billion and additional direct employment of close to one million workers.

Data from the United States Agency for International Development-funded Growth with Equity in Mindanao (GEM) program showed that Mindanao cities like General Santos, Iligan and Zamboanga have strong potential as competitive offshoring sites, particularly when the labor and infrastructure resources of their neighboring municipalities and provinces are factored in.

The GEM program is helping to facilitate BPO investment in Mindanao.

“Developing these additional cities would help the Philippines achieve a more balanced distribution of growth in the BPO sector. This will ease some of the pressures on costs and help seed development in other parts of the country,” Garcia said.

Bing Garcia, vice president and chief operations officer of Marbel Telephone System Inc., said his company has begun laying down a fiber-optic network which he calls the “Ring of Fiber” connecting General Santos and the provinces of South Cotabato and Sarangani.

The “Ring” is being established in preparation for General Santos’ planned WiMax system, a wireless digital communications system whose broad coverage can be extended to its outlying districts and rural areas, much like a cellular-phone network.

Tacurong City and the 11 municipalities in the province of Sultan Kudarat will also be connected to the fiber-optic network under the Sultan Kudarat Telephone System Inc.

General Santos City is the trading and agro-industrial center of Region 12, which also encompasses the provinces of South Cotabato, Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat and Sarangani.

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ZAMBOANGA CITY—More business- process outsourcing (BPO) offices are likely to open in Mindanao as key cities like General Santos continue to develop business environments that are particularly attractive to information-technology (IT) firms, industry experts noted.

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