Local Economy
08 December 2008
A competitive economy
Quezon City is one of the fastest growing metropolitan areas in the Philippines today. Recently, it joined the ranks of Hong Kong, Singapore and Taipei, as one of the top 10 Asian Cities of the Future. Quezon City was ranked number 7 among more than 200 Asian cities, based on a survey commissioned by the London Financial Times through AsiaBiz Strategy, an investment and trade promotion consultancy based in Singapore. Hong Kong, Singapore and Taipei were the top three.
Consistently figuring in the top 10, and practically outranking other Philippine cities except in one category, Quezon City was assessed No. 5 in the category, “Best Economic Potential.” It was third best in Asia, in terms of “Cost Effectiveness,” sixth best, in terms of “Best Human Resources,” and tenth best, in terms of “Quality of Life.”
Mayor Feliciano Belmonte’s forward-looking management style has been able to make the most of the City’s strategic assets – its large and generally young population, its central location at the heart of Metro Manila, as well as the realities of Quezon City being a location of choice for media operations, schools and training center and medical facilities.
Wide range of business establishments
Quezon City had 58,196 registered businesses in 2008, rising from 56,810 in 2007, and 56,753 in 2006. The annual average new business entrants total more than 11,000, with about 43 new establishments registered daily.
The completion of new malls such as SM’s The Block, Ayala Land’s TriNoma, and Waltermart plus the operationalization of the UP-Ayala Science and Technology Park, virtually an e-community at UP’s 38-hectare Commonwealth Avenue Property, has contributed to the high average of registrants in recent years.
The distribution of new registrants are:
- Contractor of goods and services, including leasing – 61.6%
- Retailers – 22.5%
- Wholesalers – 9.1%
- Eating places – 5.8%
- Manufacturers – 0.5%
- Amusement places – 0.2%
An emerging global outsourcing city
Within the City are located at least 14 Philippine Export Zone Authority-accredited special economic zones dedicated to information technology, which offer ready-to use facilities for IT based businesses, contributing to Quezon City’s growing IT character.
In a 2008 Tholons special report on global services, Quezon City ranked among the top 50 emerging global outsourcing cities. They conducted a location assessement based on scale and quality of workforce (including education), business catalyst, cost, infrastructure, risk profile, and quality of life. Within the six categories are 15 subcategories that differentiate cities, and to a large extent determine their individual capacities to fulfill particular services. Quezon City ranked number 21 global outsourcing city, the highest among all nine new entrants.
The City is home to more than 60 business process outsourcing companies and about 3,000 companies engaged in ICT-related businesses. Many companies, both local and international, are discovering that Quezon City is a cost-effective business location.
Internet cafes are a popular destination, and about 600,000 of them dot many parts of the City including many residential neighborhoods. The City has about 450 computer retailers and distributors. More than 3,000 micro entrepreneurs are engaged in ICT-related businesses.
The City has at least 43 destinations offering wireless fidelity (wifi) service technology. Among the most expansive are the 35-hectare Araneta Center in Cubao and Eastwood Cyberpark.
Rich human resource pool
With 2.68 million people, Quezon City is the most populated city of the Philippines, and has the third biggest population among the country’s local government units. While other cities and municipalities would consider a huge population as a burden and a drain on public services, the City government views its young population both as a large, trainable human resource pool as well as a big, dynamic, consumer market.
About 52.26% of its population is less than 25 years old. The City produces nearly 15,000 college graduates every year from its 87 university level institutions. Easy access to skilled and trainable manpower has been attracting human resource-intensive businesses (such as information technology companies, service firms and health and wellness facilities) to establish and expand their operations in Quezon City.
Harnessing the poor as productive assets
Better living standards for all citizens, especially the poor. The City has a large, poor population. An estimated 55% of the population are migrants, many of them from provinces, who come to the city in search of the proverbial better life. Some of these end up as informal settlers, who find the vast, vacant lots of the city convenient places to set up shacks.
Our basic strategy is to try to assimilate the in-migrants, integrate them into a progressive city life, and help them become productive, contributing citizens.
Poverty alleviation is a core governance objective in our City government’s development thrusts, which we call the ABC of development, enunciated as:
- Alleviating Poverty
- Building up the City
- Competing on Efficiencies
Our strategy views the livability of communities as the result of the enhanced capacity of citizens to improve their personal and family quality of life. Better health, shelter, educational and economic conditions encourage them to look out into their communities, and participate actively in resolving common environmental concerns, as well as give them the incentive to work together for neighborhood and community upliftment.
Primary and secondary education, even in public schools are geared toward readiness for information technology. Internet laboratories exist in all Quezon City public high schools. Electronic libraries are used in 33 public elementary and high schools. Two training schools exist for affordable centralized IT training – one was developed with the help of the South Korean government and is geared toward mastery of computer animation, while the other is focused on high school training on basic computer software.
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