BACOLOD City is now in 86th place in the 2015 Tholons International Top 100 Outsourcing Destinations list, up by seven notches from 93rd in 2014.
Councilor Jocelle Batapa-Sigue, executive director of the Bacolod-Negros Occidental Federation for Information and Communications Technology (BNEFIT), said the result is contained in the annual report released by Tholons International in December.
Starting at 99th in 2011 and climbing to 94th in 2013, Bacolod has strongly advanced in the Tholons annual report due to the consistent strategies of various stakeholders in increasing talent supply and scalability, improving business environment, and constant support of the local government and the business sector, Batapa-Sigue noted.
Neighboring Iloilo City also moved up to 91st spot from 95th last year.
Batapa-Sigue cited as factors for the positive development the constant investment by the provincial government and other local government units in developing human resources through various trainings, the industry and academe collaboration to step up the quality of talent, and the foresight of the province in building the Negros First CyberCentre, and of private real estate developers in building spaces accredited by the Philippine Economic Zone Authority.
The BNEFIT also strongly supports all investment promotion activities of the city and the province, she said.
Batapa-Sigue added that Bacolod placed higher this year probably also because of its recent declaration as Center of Excellence in Information and Communications Technology-Business Process Management by the Information and Communications Technology Office of the Department of Science and Technology (ICTO-DOST) and the ICT-Business Processing Association of the Philippines (IBPAP) in 2013.
“Our biggest challenge now is to continue our efforts to improve our manpower supply, create diverse global services such as medical or health information management, animation game development, software development, while leveraging on our excellent English communications skills,” she said.