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Friday, February 17, 2006
Mayor to Asian Institute of Management: Explain ratings
By Linette C. Ramos and Aurelia L. Castro
CEBU CITY -- Cebu’s business leaders remain confident in the city’s economic competitiveness, despite results of a study that excluded the city from the list of the most viable business sites in the country.
“However, we should take it as a wake-up call. If we have been overtaken by other cities like Davao, we should take it as a challenge and find out why,” said Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry president Robert Go in an interview Thursday.
Davao, Las Piñas, Makati, Marikina and Muntinlupa are among the 20 most viable cities today, according to the Philippine Cities Competitiveness Ranking Project of the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) Policy Center.
The study used as criteria the cost of doing business, links to major urban and growth centers, dynamism of the local economy, human resource and training, adequacy and quality of infrastructure, responsiveness of local governance, and quality of life.
Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña has requested the study’s proponents to explain their findings, which are “embarrassing to the city.”
While he thinks AIM is credible, Osmeña said he cannot help but wonder why Cebu did not make it to the top five most viable business sites, among 13 metro cities in the country.
No alibis
Cebu City ranked first in terms of linkages and accessibility, but it ranked 12th in infrastructure among the cities covered in the study.
“The one that bothers my mind is, we’re number 12 in infrastructure. We’re kulelat, considering that compared to other cities, we run our own traffic system and we’re the only one who does that... I really want to argue again but I won’t seek alibis,” said Osmeña, an outstanding alumnus of AIM in 2003.
In a separate interview, Carlos Co, former vice president of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry-Visayas, said Cebu is still among the best cities to live in and do business in the country.
“The survey might create a negative effect among investors because they might think the city is indeed not a good choice in doing business. We must improve our image,” he said.
Go, for his part, doesn’t expect the survey to have a major negative effect on Cebu’s economy and investment climate. But he stressed that the local government and private sector should look at the survey and find out why Cebu failed to land among the top choices.
“By doing that, we will know how and what to improve,” Go said.
Categories
While Cebu City could have high points in some criteria, such as quality of life, dynamism of the local economy and cost of doing business, he pointed out that the city’s infrastructure is a low point.
“Infrastructure for sure is one of our weak points. We should lobby for the National Government to fund projects in Cebu,” he said.
Cebu’s productivity would increase by 60 percent if it had Metro Manila’s infrastructure, economist Ernesto Pernia had said during a lecture on investment climate and regional development in December last year.
Leah Umali, program manager of the Philippine Cities Competitiveness Ranking Project 2005, said Cebu City, a metro city, did not make it to the top 20 since the 20 chosen cities were further classified into three.
The 20 cities identified as most viable business sites in the country included five metro cities, five mid-sized cities and 10 small cities.
“The study covered three classifications of cities. Cebu City is a metro city and cannot be compared to mid-sized or small cities. So when we interpret the results, we do it by categories, but we do not identify them according to rank or score,” Umali told Sun.Star.
In his news conference Thursday, Osmeña said he will give AIM’s representatives a chance to explain how they came up with their conclusions.
‘Embarrassing’
“On dynamism of economy we ranked number 10? This is embarrassing. We have so many investors coming to Cebu and we’re not dynamic? AIM is supposed to be credible but I look at this and I start to scratch my head,” Osmeña said.
In the meantime, he added, he will focus on the areas where Cebu City ranked poorly, according to the study.
“I have to be responsible for whatever defects are there, precisely why I want to find out why we ranked low. My interest is to find out which areas we neglected so we can attack that right away. Ranking is only secondary,” the mayor said.
A total of 65 cities were ranked according to seven indicators: cost of doing business, dynamism of the local economy, linkages and accessibility, human resources and training, infrastructure, responsiveness to business needs and quality of life.
Cebu City ranked fourth in the cost of doing business among the 13 metro cities, 10th in dynamism of the local economy, fourth in human resources training, ninth in responsiveness to business needs and eighth in the quality of life.
In a phone interview, Umali said she suspects Cebu City was not included in the top five metro cities because of the perceptions of the respondents, who are Cebu City residents from different sectors.
Perception
Two-thirds of the weight of each indicator used in the study is based on the perception of the respondents, she added.
The University of San Carlos Research Center conducted the research with 130 respondents, using the purposive sampling method.
“I have a strong sense that if Cebu City ranked low in some drivers, it’s on the perception side. With regards to infrastructure, it’s not limited to physical infrastructure but the quality of projects as well,” Umali said.
So, even if a good traffic management system is in place but a respondent feels traffic is poorly managed, this would affect a city’s ranking, she added.
Umali advised the local government units (LGUs) concerned to invest in informing their constituents of their projects and programs so they would know what services are available to them.
The LGUs in Visayas will be informed about the findings of the study during the presentation of the results, conclusions and their assessment of each city on March 24 in Cebu City.
“This will give the cities an idea how they can help each other and how to collaborate with one another to be more competitive,” Umali said. (Sun.Star Cebu)
(February 17, 2006 issue)
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