Mindanao Cities on the Rise

City competitiveness, as defined by the World Competitiveness Yearbook, is the ability of a city to create and maintain an environment that sustains more value creation for its enterprises and more prosperity for its people.

In the recent research of the Asian Institute for Management (AIM) on the Philippine Cities Competitiveness Ranking Project (PCCRP) 2005, Philippine cities were again ranked based on seven major drivers of competitiveness: cost of doing business, dynamism of local economy, linkages and accessibility, human resources and training, infrastructure, responsiveness of local government to business needs, and quality of life. These drivers were adopted from the World Competitiveness Yearbook of the Swiss-based International Institute for Management Development.

The drivers are inter-related as one affects the other. For example, the cost of doing business driver was matched with infrastructure and quality of life. Infrastructure plays a major role in attaining economies of scale (balanced supply and demand), while efficient delivery of services improves quality of life. Dynamism of local economy also affects the cost of doing business since imbalanced supply and demand results in higher costs. A dynamic local economy also results to enhanced linkages and accessibility of resources.

Leadership affects overall competitiveness of a city. When a city is competitive, this ultimately leads to cost effective business transactions that create self-reliant Local Government Units (LGU) that are able to generate local revenues to establish a more dynamic local economy with improved infrastructure and service delivery.

The project assessed the capacity of a city to provide an environment that nurtures the dynamism of its local enterprises and industries; the general ability to attract investments and entrepreneurs, and to uplift the living standards of its residents. Lastly, the project provides a benchmarking process that will aid individual cities in measuring competitiveness. The study was intended to motivate the local governments to be economic managers, not just service providers; provide feedback mechanism for business community for local governments; and provide an assessment tool to pinpoint and analyze best practices in economic management and apply competitiveness lessons from other LGUS.

“Sixty-five cities were surveyed in PCCRP 2005, the fourth edition of the project. Cities were categorized into 13 metropolitan cities (cities comprising Metro Manila, Metro Cebu, and Metro Davao), 15 mid-sized cities (non-metro cities each with a population greater than 200,000), and 37 small cities (each with a population less than 200,000). Geographically, 30 cities are from Luzon, 14 from Visayas, and 21 from Mindanao.

Competitiveness of Mindanao Cities
Based on the results, five Mindanao cities were named most competitive. Davao , for the metropolitan city category; Iligan for the mid-size ; Koronadal, Surigao, and Tagum for the small-sized cities.

Davao City is the only metro city in Mindanao named as one of the most competitive cities in the country ; once again confirming its role as the central economic hub of the island. The efficient LGU response to business needs, infrastructure and high quality of life also contributed to the city's high rating.

In the medium-scale category, only Iligan made it as a competitive city, ranking second in cost of doing business, efficient response of LGUs, and developed infrastructure. Butuan ranked 4th in cost of doing business, Cagayan de Oro ranked 4th in Infrastructure, General Santos was 2nd in Linkages and Accessibility, and Zamboanga was first in cost of doing business and dynamism of local economy.

Small Mindanao Cities
In the small-scale cities category Surigao was ranked first in Cost of Doing Business, seconded by Koronadal, while Tagum was third in Responsiveness of LGUs to Business needs. Others that joined the Project acquired the following results in one or two drivers: Bago was 10th and Tacurong ranked 15th in Responsiveness of LGUs to business needs; Bislig was 29th in Economic Dynamism and Responsiveness of LGUs; Cotabato ranked 15th in Human Resources and Training; Dapitan was at top 11 & Oroquieta was at top 23 in Quality of Life; Digos was at top 13 in infrastructure; Gingoog was at 3rd ,Pagadian 9th and Marawi 11th in cost of doing business, while Valencia made it to 15th; Ozamis was 19th in dynamism of local economy; and Panabo was 7th in Linkages and Accessibility.

Drivers of Competitiveness
From the competitive cities' documented best practices, the leadership value of local government officials, followed by the presence of a strong support system (business alliances and responsive civil society) were deemed necessary to become a competitive city. Other factors influencing competitiveness included quality of human resources, presence of good infrastructure and a stable peace and order situation.

These best practices were based on the basics of development, which are provision for infrastructure (roads & bridges, water, power, telecommunications); quick and simplified response from government; accurate and timely collection of statistics which builds to policy making, resulting to ordinances and regulations that are responsive to current and emergent needs. Participatory governance by engaging the constituencies to collaborate with and support government development plans, is also a major factor highlighted in the study.

The study further noted the major contribution of cities to national economic development. All Mindanao cities surveyed and studied were contributing in the over all economic development of Mindanao through improved infrastructure and efficient delivery of services.