Saturday, July 26, 2008 [ sunstar.com.ph ]
SAN Fernando City in La Union Province has consistently maintained its stature as one of the Top Performing City-Small Cities Category.
This is based on the competitive survey conducted all over the country by the Philippine Cities Competitiveness Ranking Project (PCCRP) administered by the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) Policy Center.
Joining San Fernando City are the cities of Dagupan in Pangasinan, Bayawan, Calapan, Calbayog, Dipolog, Laoag, Malaybalay, Naga, Surigao, Tagbilaran and Tuguegarao.
It's the fifth award for San Fernando City.
San Fernando City Mayor Pablo Ortega, together with the other mayors from the awardee-cities, received the recognition on July 4, 2008 during the PCCRP 2007 presentation at the Intercontinental Hotel in Makati City.
San Fernando City received an overall rating of 7.55 percent, higher than the rating received by Davao City and Olongapo City--which both received 7.05 percent in the big-sized and medium-sized cities category, respectively.
"We are on top of other competitors, and we are glad that we have maintained our competitiveness," Ortega said.
The city was assessed as number one in human resources and training, infrastructure, and responsiveness to business needs.
"AIM, a well-known and respected institution, has exerted effort to look at the situation of each city in the Philippines," the mayor said, explaining that AIM selected the cities it evaluated for the competition.
Accordingly, the PCCRP is a flagship research undertaking of the AIM Policy Center that seeks to identify the best cities in the Philippines in which to live, work, and operate a business.
San Fernando City has been included in the top 10 competitive cities since 1999 when the PCCRP was launched.
During the first round in 1999, it was in fourth place and eventually improved when it ranked third in the second round in 2002.
In 2003, it became number 2 in its category, topping two competitiveness drivers, namely, human resources and training and quality of life. In 2005, the city was number 1 in linkage and accessibility and responsiveness to business needs.
The PCCRP surveyed 90 cities for the 2007 round. The cities were rated based on the competitive drivers broken down into dynamism of local economy, cost of doing business, infrastructure, human resources and training, responsiveness of the local government unit (LGU) to business needs, and quality of life. (LCMY/Sunnex)
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