PNoy: Govt to help BPO industry keep on growing

Government will give the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry a favorable environment to sustain the momentum of growth, President Benigno Aquino III said Monday. Aquino gave the assurance during the inauguration of NetworkLabs, Nokia Siemens Network’s (NSN) research and development facility at the University of the Philippines-Ayala Technohub in Quezon City. To sustain the momentum of the business sector, the Aquino administration has cut red tape in business registration, reassessed the tax rulings process to make it more efficient, and reduced the required documents for bidding in public works, the President said. Government is offering generous tax incentives to investors, including six to eight years of income tax holidays for BPO-related investments, Aquino said. The incentive allowed the BPO industry to gain net margins of 11-21 percent in 2010, compared to India’s 13-16 percent, he added. Under the Omnibus Investments Code and other laws, investors are given four to six years of income tax holidays for projects listed in the Investments Priority Plan, depending on pioneer status, as well as duty free importation of capital equipment. “We want to see more businesses opening, and to see many more skilled Filipinos being employed. More businesses open, the more opportunities our countrymen will have to show what they are capable of," he said. Benefitting from technology Telecommunications has helped the Science and Technology Department give early warning against landslides and floods through the use of strategically placed automated cell phones, the President noted. The Department of Health also stands to benefit from technological advancements with improvements in Telehealth by increasing capacity for transferring information and helping medical services grow, he said. “Allowing our people to feel in their everyday lives the effects of these technological gains is our way of reciprocating the hard work of these researchers and developers, many of them, our countrymen," he said. The newly constructed NSN NetworkLabs is the first R&D facility in Southeast Asia internationally recognized in the telecommunications industry. It services and supports all R&D teams around the world. The Philippines was selected among 37 locations as NSN’s new hub in Asia. Having NetworkLabs in the Philippines is a source of great national pride because no one ever thought that the country would be a worldwide leader in the BPO industry, Aquino said. “It is a vote of confidence in our skills, in our work ethic, and in our inherent creativity. Much more than that, however, it embodies the sea change in the way this country works. It embodies a newfound ambition of our people and the new can-do attitude we have been trying to foster," he said. — VS, GMA News