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Friday, August 26, 2005
Espinoza: Catalyst of a new economic order
By Fred C. Espinoza
DETERMINATION. By hosting the Mandaue Business Month celebration, under the aegis of the city’s 36th Charter Day anniversary, local business leaders showed their determination to make their emerging organization—the Mandaue Chamber of Commerce and Industry Inc. (MCCI)—the catalyst of a new Mandaue economic order.
This perception could have been created by the presence of Ambassador Donald Dee as guest speaker during the opening of the business forum at the second floor of the modern Casino Español de Cebu last Wednesday.
And being the head of one of the nation’s most influential and respected business organizations—the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI)—the Philippine diplomat could have taken note of the grand design that keeps bubbling in the minds of leading entrepreneurs in the thriving business community when he appealed to the businessmen to remain calm even if the political climate looks hazy.
“Do what we do best, which is doing business and making investment decisions.
Like all storms, man-made or nature-born, this too, will blow over,” he said.
No doubt, the task ahead would demand a lot of imagination and determination before it can be accomplished. But many are aware that Mandaue entrepreneurs are no strangers insofar as executive leadership is concerned.
No less than City Mayor Thadeo Ouano spoke highly of the performance of local exporters who, he said, have distinguished themselves in helping the country earn badly needed dollars to keep the Philippine economy humming.
The top honcho of PCCI cited “sunrise industries” developing in Metro Manila and other urban centers. For him, call centers and business process outsourcing are the “in thing today.”
“Call centers have filled up most of the vacant floors of buildings in Makati and the Ortigas business quarters. These are spilling out to Alabang, Quezon City and Subic,” he said. He also said these service companies are cornering the best new graduates by offering starting salary rates “much higher than those offered by established corporations.” The latest estimate is that call centers have put up about 60,000 seats, employing close to 100,000 young men and women as of the end of June this year.
Outside of these high technology-driven industries, the forward-looking corporate leader tried to give the audience a glimpse of a steady growth of enterprises and new industries that find themselves in the Asia-wide production supply chain. He said our trade with the rest of Asia is expected to steadily rise as parts of the regional economy are drawn closer to each other, citing electronics and the automotive industries as concrete examples.
“As we discover our areas of complementation, other industries will find where and how they can get into one bigger chain. I suspect that integration will make a big difference when Asian governments realize the need to put together a regional food supply chain.
Host to almost half of the people on earth, Asia has the demand push and is fast acquiring the purchasing power to stage a new green revolution,” Dee said.
On the other hand, perhaps the PCCI president would do well to follow up on the progress of the appeal made by our exporters to President Arroyo “to speed up reforms and enable the industry to fuel further growth in the country’s export sector.”
So far, exports grew by only 3.3 percent in the first half of the year.
Local exporters said they are determined to meet the $50-billion export revenue target next year, but they need a P10-billion credit facility from government to help beef up capacity and enable them to be more competitive vis-a-vis exporters from other countries.
Another problem the exporters wished addressed is the red tape in the processing of business-related papers, particularly those related to imports and exports and the granting of environmental clearances, which badly needs upgrading to international standards, a report said.
(August 26, 2005 issue)
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