NCC ranks Manila most competitive city this year

MANILA, Philippines – Manila, the country’s capital, has regained its glory as a prime investment destination after being named as this year’s most competitive city, according to a report by the National Competitiveness Council (NCC).

The report indicated the ranking of cities and municipalities based on economic dynamism, government efficiency and infrastructure.

Manila relegated Makati to the second spot followed by Cebu City.

Makati City was a two-time recipient of the most competitive city ranking.

“The index on competitivenes gives the private sector a basis for studying cities and determining where to locate their investments in the country. For the public sector, this becomes a diagnostic tool so the public executives may know whether they are delivering or not delivering, whether they are getting better or not improving, and whether they are getting the results they want or not,” NCC co-chairman Guillermo Luz said.

When asked if Makati’s decline in the ranking was affected by the recent controversies surrounding the Binay family, Luz said “it may have.”

“But we take measurement for one year so it’s not just a controversy that will affect it all of a sudden. It’s really performance over a year,” he said.

Davao Del Sur emerged as this year’s most competitive province, followed by Misamis Oriental and the province of Cebu.

Among highly urbanized cities, those found to be most economically dynamic were Quezon City, Makati City and Parañaque City.

Iloilo City topped the ranking of cities when it comes to government efficiency followed by Cagayan De Oro City.

For the infrastructure category, the top cities were Manila, Cebu and Zamboanga.

The overall most competitive municipality under the 3rd to 6th class was Mambajao, Camiguin,while General Trias, Cavite bagged the top spot under the 1st to 2nd class.

The cities and municipalities competitveness index is a program which encourages LGUs to gather and submit data which will be used to measure their performance on economic dynamism, government efficiency and infrastructure.

For this year, the NCC said 142 cities and 978 municipalities participated in the index, up from 136 cities and 399 municipalities last year.

By coming up with the competiveness index, Luz said more investment and job opportunities would be created in hopes of curbing internal migration and lessening the risk for investments.

“Not everything needs to be in Manila or Cebu or Davao. We need to have the opportunities spread out. If cities become competitive, the whole country becomes competitive,” Luz said. -Richmond S. Mercurio (The Philippine Star)