Malaysian firm bullish on P1.5-B Nueva Ecija IT hub

By Philippine News Agency, December 4, 2016

A Malaysian conglomerate that bankrolled the P1.5-billion government center/information technology (IT) hub in Palayan City, Nueva Ecija is bullish over the prospects of a project amid fears it might fail due to its remote location and other constraints.

AlloyMtd expressed belief that the project, which will start operating in January 2017, will trigger an economic boom in Nueva Ecija with the thousands of jobs that will be generated even if an earlier call center project in the province’s commercial capital, Cabanatuan City, closed shop.

Rizza Lao, AlloyMtd public relations officer and marketing consultant, said they are upbeat about the project because it is situated in an area away from Metro Manila where competition among business process outsourcing (BPO) firms is tight apart from the attendant congestion in the metropolis.

“As you can see now, Metro Manila is heavily congested and BPOs are engaged in cutthroat competition that they are pirating call center agents from each other,” she said, noting that call centers have reached a certain level of saturation point.

Lao made the statement amid concerns that the call centers in Palayan might not prosper because of manpower problems, geographic isolation and the failure of an earlier BPO firm to prosper in booming Cabanatuan.

Earlier, Lao admitted the city government is having difficulty in hiring personnel for the call centers , with only 20 percent of the required 15,000 call center agents so far recruited.

The call centers are also not centrally located unlike Cabanatuan and is considered remote, located some 130 kilometers from Manila.

The government center/IT in Barangay Singalat houses two world-class BPO buildings and is considered the biggest single public-private partnership project in Nueva Ecija so far.

AlloyMtd, the Malaysian conglomerate which financed the project, said the two BPOs can together accommodate 5,000 call center agents.

With three shifts, the centers will require 15,000 call center agents. Each call center agent stands to earn a minimum starting salary of P15,000 a month.

Nueva Ecija Gov. Czarina Umali is sanguine that the project—a brainchild of her husband, former three-term governor Aurelio Umali and Cuevas—would trigger an economic boom in the province.

Kuala Lumpur-based AlloyMtd, a known infrastructure giant in Asia, built the facility in an area spanning 37,500 square meters in a joint venture with the provincial and city governments.

The BPO buildings are equipped with state-of-the-art air-conditioning facilities and mechanical systems and high-speed Internet connectivity through fiber optic, a major requirement by call center companies.

Governor Umali said at the heart of the project is the government center to be occupied by national offices that will move from Cabanatuan to Palayan City as part of efforts to consolidate all national and local services in one location.

The project will also house a 7,500-square-meter central plaza to serve as main activity center with a substation connected to the Luzon grid, ensuring stable and sufficient power.

The provincial government has secured a direct connection approval from the Energy Regulatory Commission. Additionally, liquefied petroleum gas-powered standby generators will be installed as base load support for the power requirements of the multi-story buildings.

Aside from the 15,000 call center agents, another 3,000 jobs will be generated in the operation of the hotel.

AlloyMtd has invested P10 billion in the country, having also bankrolled the construction of the P3.9-billion, 36-kilometer South Luzon Expressway and the P2.5-billion Calabarzon Regional Government Center dubbed the “Complete City.”

AlloyMtd, which operates in 13 countries including the U.S. and China, has been credited with building world-class government centers patterned after Putrajaya, a planned city and federal administrative center 25 kilometers south of Kuala Lumpur.

Made up of a network of open spaces and wide boulevards, Putrajaya was constructed in 1995 as the biggest project in Malaysia and one of the biggest in Southeast Asia at a cost of $8.1 billion.

Tags: AlloyMtd, BPO, government center, IT hub, Malaysian firm, Malaysian firm bullish on P1.5-B Nueva Ecija IT hub, Nueva Ecija, Palayan City