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Saturday, March 01, 2003
Cebu property owners offer space for call center operators: CIPC exec
By Jessica B. Natad
AMID the increasing demand for call center locations, property owners in Cebu are now opening up their properties and constructing buildings for prospective call center operators.
Among them are two lot owners of the Ayala-owned Asiatown IT (information technology) Park in Lahug and the Science Park of the Philippines Inc. (SPPI), developer of the Cebu Light Industrial Park (Clip) in Mactan, according to Cebu Investment Promotions Center (CIPC) managing director Joel Mari Yu.
He said the lot owners had expressed willingness to put up office buildings that will be leased at the P250-per-square-meter rate suggested earlier by call center operators.
Asiatown developer Cebu Property Ventures and Development Corp. (CPVDC) earlier assured investors that it would talk to the park’s landowners and convince them to look into the possibility of lowering its P350-per-square-meter lease rate to P250.
Yu said eight to 10 other property owners outside the IT park had also submitted their properties for inclusion in the list of available sites for call centers in Cebu being prepared by CIPC.
Contact Center
The list will be presented to the Contact Center Association of the Philippines during the visit of its representatives in Cebu by March to explore the area’s potentials as a call center location.
At Asiatown, Yu said the two property owners who are willing to start construction of their buildings acquired the lots close to the e-block, where the e-Office buildings are located.
Each property is about 1,000 square meters, and they are very near the e-block so they are ideal for call centers,” Yu said.
The IT park is now hosting two IT companies aside from the Ayala-owned Globe Telecom Inc. These are NEC Telecom Software Philippines Inc. and Tsuneishi Technical Services.
On the other hand, Clip vice president for marketing Jose Gamatero earlier said the economic zone was capable of accommodating IT companies “with some adjustments.
Clip, which is designed for manufacturing industries, started operations in the latter part of 1997. It now has six locators.
SPPI has constructed a P70-million standard facility building inside Clip for lease to interested tenants.
Mandaue
Earlier, CIPC’s Yu said customer care management solutions provider Sykes Asia Inc. would soon open in Mandaue City its third contact center in the country. This will initially be a 200-seat contact center that will start operations in the second quarter of this year.
He said at least six other call center companies based in Manila as well as in the United States were also looking at Cebu as a potential site for their operations.
(March 1, 2003 issue)
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