3 Cebu cities on list of wealthiest areas outside Metro Manila

CEBU, Philippines — At least three cities in Metro Cebu are included on the list of the wealthiest cities outside Metro Manila.

In its first-ever Provincial Product Accounts (PPA), the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) revealed that Lapu-Lapu City ranked 3rd among the wealthiest cities outside Metro Manila, boasting an average Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per person of P313,039.

Meanwhile, Cebu City and Mandaue City placed 6th and 8th, respectively.

The same report cited Gross Domestic Product as metric to gauge the value of goods and services produced within a region. By dividing this value by the number of full-time residents, known as per capita, PSA glimpsed into that area’s wealth or poverty levels.

Here, Cebu City ranked sixth, although the findings only covered 16 pilot regions outside NCR, including 82 provinces and 17 urbanized cities, in a study conducted from November to December 2023.

To sustain this, acting mayor Raymond Alvin Garcia said he wished to tighten relations with other cities.

He explained that the ranking is based on the total of goods and the products produced by the city divided by the number of residents.

He said that in the case of Cebu City, it has the biggest population, estimated to be over a million of all cities outside Metro Manila, because people flock to the city for job opportunities.

“So, of course, mas daghan imong denominator, ma-spread out gyud ang number. Let’s say, if you only have a population of half a million for example unya dako kaayo imong total production and per capita. Pero dili man kana ang case sa Cebu City because we are the second outside of Manila in terms of population,” he said.

Despite this, Garcia said being number sixth is still “very encouraging” a good indicator that the government and the private sector strengthened their efforts in growing the economy.

He said strengthening this is nurturing the government’s partnership with the private sector.

“The more investment we have here, the more businesses we have here in the city of Cebu, the more that we can create more opportunities, employment for our people,” he said.

“To make the government more business-friendly, make it more attractive to more investors so that we can grow more our economy and provide the needed employment and infrastructure for Cebu City so that it will be a haven of investment,” he further said. — (FREEMAN)