(Note: This was the Press Release issued to local media on November 18, 2007. Bacolod ended the year 2010 with 11,000 ICT-enabled jobs)
About a hundred stakeholders coming from the information and communications technology (ICT) industry, government, academe, business, real estate and the media committed to generate at least 10,000 offshore and outsourcing (O & O) jobs and the same number of qualified professionals in Bacolod and Negros Occidental by 2010 during the ICT conference held in the city last week.
The total industry revenue reached US$3.3 with a total of 234,000 total direct workforce for the Philippines as of end of 2006. The operations of major locators in Bacolod generated about 4,000 call center jobs, Councilor Jocelle Batapa-Sigue, main convenor said.
Aside from delegates from schools and the private sector in Bacolod, also represented were the cities of Silay, San Carlos, Bago, and Sipalay and the municipalities of Moises Padilla and Pulupandan, real estate groups, as well as schools such as Bago City College, Kabankalan Catholic College, Silay Insitute, and Binalbagan Catholic College, Batapa-Sigue said.
The Commission of Information and Communications Technology (CICT) with the Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPAP) is gearing up to capture ten percent of the world’s outsourcing market equivalent to $13 billion revenues and one million employment by 2010 through public-private sector initiatives, CICT Commissioner Monchito Ibrahim told the delegates last Thursday.
Ibrahim challenged Bacolod and Negros Occidental to enhance talent development, expand the geographical spread of the country’s outsourcing capabilities and further improve the business environment for investors. As a first step, CICT calls on the stakeholders to jointly answer the metrics for the Philippine Roadmap 2010, a comprehensive study of the Philippine outsourcing industry which details the aspirations of the Philippine BPO industry and the initiatives needed in order to achieve these goals.
All the ICT delegates agreed to for Bacolod-Negros Occidental Foundation for ICT (BNEFIT) in order to sustain the gains of the ICT sector, increase to 20 percent or more the hiring rate and expand the ICT activities from call centers to software development, medical and legal transcription, IT engineering and other ICT strains.
The Philippines was awarded as 2007 Most Preferred Country Location for Outsourcing by the National Outsourcing Association of UK last October, as it clinches the spot of having the third largest market share with $3.3B total revenue for 2006 or 1.4 percent of the market, and already second to India in the call center industry.
Jocelle Batapa Sigue 