Quezon City among top destinations for new businesses

MANILA, Philippines - Quezon City is making progress in its effort to become one of the country’s most vibrant destinations for doing business.

With infrastructure development steadily building up along with more and more inputs getting in place for a better business climate, executives of different business process outsourcing (BPO) firms noted that Quezon City now maintains a competitive edge in the regional as well as global levels of these industries.

“Quezon City is selling itself good,” they said during a meeting entitled “Future Perfect Cybercity: Merging Efforts Towards ICT Growth,” at the Mandarin Oriental Suites of the Gateway Mall in Cubao.

Aside from smart infrastructure projects and ease in setting up business in the city, other factors considered by the participants are the presence of an intensive labor pool, improved peace and order and support of the local government.

“The city government considers it imperative to improve the general framework of doing business in Quezon City to give potential investors that sense of feeling “that they could do their business here without knowing anybody in the city hall,” said Mayor Feliciano Belmonte Jr.

Belmonte said what the city government is doing right now is create a better climate for the business sector to promote the development of more vibrant communities and business centers.

During the meeting, the mayor presented to the participants some of the latest development in Quezon City, including the central business district (CBD), which has been envisioned as having enormous potentials for large-scale development in the National Capital Region that could provide the biggest stimulus needed by the government in the National Capital Region that could provide the biggest stimulus needed by the government to help the country at the forefront of global investment and business interest.

The city government’s continuing effort to promote QC as ICT capital also highlighted the presentation.

From a pioneering cyberpark in Eastwood City in 2001, Quezon City now has 28 registered ICT parks with the Philippine Economic Zone Authority. The biggest of which so far is the 38-hectare UP Science and Technology Park along Commonwealth Avenue.

To encourage the growth of the ICT industry, particularly the BPO companies, the city government formed the Quezon City BPO-ICT Council last year to attend to the needs of these businesses and prospective locators. The new body is headed by Manuel Sabalza, who is the assistant city administrator for operations and head of the city’s department of public order and safety.

According to the Business Processing Association of the Philippines, the forecast manpower demand for the outsourcing and offshoring sectors could reach one million for the period 2008-2010.

Quezon City hopes to produce at least 20,000 potential workers for these sectors in 2010. To date, the city government offers free call center trainings to meet the demand of the BPO industry.