Philippine Cyber Corridor

The Philippine Cyber Corridor is an initiative being pursued by the Philippine Government to create interconnected centers of business process outsourcing (BPO) services all over the country. These services include call center, back office, software development, medical transcription, legal transcription, engineering design and animation. It is part of the ten-point agenda of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and is one of the five super regions she established to spur economic development.

In 2007, the Philippine BPO industry generated 4.9 billion US dollars of revenue and employed 300,000 workers at year-end. The industry hopes to employ one million workers and generate 13 billion US dollars of annual revenue by 2010. [cite news|title=Offshoring & Outsourcing Philippines: Roadmap 2010|url=http://bpap.org/bpap/index.asp?roadmap|date=October 1, 2007|publisher=Business Processing Association of the Philippines]

Creation

Executive Order No. 561, signed by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on August 19, 2006, divided the Philippines into five economic super regions:
* Northern Luzon Agribusiness Quadrangle
* Luzon Urban Beltway
* Central Philippines
* Agribusiness Mindanao
* Cyber Corridor

The Cyber Corridor traverses the other super regions from Baguio to Cebu to Davao. Its development theme is information and communications technology (ICT) and knowledge economy.

Locations

Metro Manila is the center of the Philippine BPO industry and is considered one of the top offshoring destinations in the world. [cite news|title=IDC’s Global Delivery Index (GDI) Predicts Chinese Cities to Overtake Bangalore, Manila and Mumbai as Highest Ranked Global Offshore Delivery Centers by 2011|url=http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prSG20768607|date=July 3, 2007|publisher=IDC]

Outside of Metro Manila, twenty-five "Next Wave Cities" have been identified as viable locations for BPO operations and included in the Cyber Corridor:
* Bacolod City, Negros Occidental
* Bacoor, Cavite
* Baguio City, Benguet
* Batangas City, Batangas
* Cabanatuan City, Nueva Ecija
* Cagayan de Oro City, Misamis Oriental
* Cainta, Rizal
* Cebu City, Cebu
* City of San Fernando, Pampanga
* Clark Freeport Zone, Angeles City, Pampanga
* Dagupan City, Pangasinan
* Davao City
* Dumaguete City, Negros Oriental
* General Santos City, South Cotabato
* Iloilo City, Iloilo
* Legazpi City, Albay
* Tacloban City, Leyte
* Lipa City, Batangas
* Naga City, Camarines Sur
* Santa Rosa City, Laguna
* Subic Bay Freeport Zone, Olongapo City, Zambales
* Tagbilaran City, Bohol
* Tuguegarao City, Cagayan
* Urdaneta City, Pangasinan
* Zamboanga City, Zamboanga

Development Champion

The Chairman of the Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT) is the development champion of the Cyber Corridor as provided by Executive Order No. 561.

The development champion's mandate is to:
* Serve as catalyst for development and prime advocate of the strategic development theme in his area
* Ensure the implementation of the priority programs and projects identified in the 2006 State of the Nation Address and the undated Medium Term Public Investment Program (MTPIP), in close collaboration with the concerned local government units, national agencies and other partners in development, and undertake the necessary interventions to help ensure that these are completed on time and at a lowest cost to government
* Work out operational policies and remedial actions to ensure that the priority programs and projects are completed on schedule and a lowest cost to government
* Submit a monthly report to the Presidential Management Staff (PMS) on the overall accomplishment of project implementation, issues and problems identified and recommend solutions

ee also

*Business process outsourcing in the Philippines

Notes

External links

* [http://www.cict.gov.ph/ Commission on Information and Communications Technology website]
* [http://www.bpap.org Business Processing Association of the Philippines website]
* [http://www.news.ops.gov.ph/pgma_10point-agenda.htm 10-point Agenda of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo]
* [http://www.ops.gov.ph/records/eo_561.htm Executive Order No. 561]