Vol. XXII, No. 60-A [ BusinessWorld Online ]
Saturday, October 18, 2008 | MANILA, PHILIPPINES
The ongoing global economic slowdown will have varying effects on local industries, with experts forecasting a weakened real estate market but opportunities for business process outsourcing (BPO) and electronics.
The real estate market in 2009 will no longer see the same growth it enjoyed this year as remittances from overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) are expected to decline, said David A. Young, managing director of property consultancy firm Colliers International Philippines, Inc.
"Over the last two years, 30% to 40% of sales in real estate were driven by OFWs ...
The boost residential developers [were getting] from OFW remittances just can’t go on," Mr. Young told a European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines conference on next year’s economic outlook.
The decline in demand will result in a 20% decrease in real estate prices next year, he added.
The business process outsourcing (BPO) industry, meanwhile, still expects growth despite the worldwide economic slump.
"We have a good chance of benefiting from an upswing [but also suffering from] a downswing in business. Which will be bigger, I don’t know. [But] I am upbeat that the industry will continue to grow," Business Process Outsourcing Association of the Philippines (BPAP) research director Gigi Virata said.
The BPAP is upbeat the industry will meet the target of 900,000 jobs by 2010 despite the global economic slowdown.
Teletech, for example, plans to increase its workforce to 20,000 from 19,000 by the end of the year, Ms. Virata said. Another BPO firm, she claimed, is recruiting as much as 300 people a week. Already there are 240,000 BPO employees in Metro Manila alone.
Electronics manufacturers, although stung by a weakening US economy, may still see continued demand for solar, aerospace, and medical technology components, Semiconductors and Electronics Industries in the Phils., Inc. president Ernesto B. Santiago said.
He reiterated previous projections that the industry would see a flat growth for the year, which could pick up starting mid-2009.
