Naga cited one of PH most competitive cities

Naga City was included in the list of top ten competitive cities of the National Competitiveness Council (NCC), garnering the 9th place and beating more developed urban centers in the National Capital Region like Manila and Quezon Cities.

The first Cities and Municipalities Competitiveness Index covered 122 cities and 163 municipalities across the country. The results were based on data compiled from local government units (LGUs) and measured the LGUs based on three factors: economic dynamism, government efficiency and infrastructure.

Naga bested the other LGUs in terms of infrastructure, which takes into account a city’s road network, households with connection to basic utilities, registered vehicles, travel time from the center to major ports, percentage of investments in infrastructure, stability of electricity and water utilities, number of cell sites and automated teller machines (ATMs), the ratio of existing hospital beds to the population, as well as the number of hotel rooms and restaurant seats.

Other LGUs from the NCR scored low on the index because of the lack of data available to the NCC. Naga is regarded as one of the most transparent LGUs in the country, making public all government data, including financial statements, thru its website www.naga.gov.ph

Naga is also widely considered as Bicol Region’s economic center, with international companies like IBM beginning to establish business processing units in the city. The city has also played host to national conventions and events, and boasts of more than 1,600 hotel rooms, dozens of food and beverage establishments, making it a premiere tourism service center.

Earlier this year, Metro Naga was recognized by the Department of Science and Technology as one of the Next Wave Cities of the country. It was also given the distinction of having the lowest dependency on the Internal Revenue Allottment (IRA) of all LGUs in Bicol.

Thirty indicators were used. Ten indicators for each area such as number of registration under the economic efficiency or dynamism, presence of an investment promotion unit under government efficiency, and travel time from center to ports for infrastructure.

Even the number of cellsites, ATMs, hotel rooms and ratio of hospital beds to population were taken into consideration to measure infrastructure readiness.

Here are the results for selected indicators:

*For the fastest processing time of business registrations, Bacolod rank the highest.
*For electricity rates which is a common plaint among businessmen, Penablanca in Cagayan Valley registered the lowest rate for electricity.
*For water services, Tarragona in Davao ranked number one. Water is free.
*For Fastest processing time to register a business, Bogo in Central Visayas registered the fastest at 0.01.
*For securing a construction permit, Naga City registered the fastest at 0.010.
*For the least number of steps to register a business, Mexico in Pampanga ranked number 1 with just two steps.
*For securing a construction permit, Calbayog was fastest with only one step.

The others had two or three.
*Quezon City had the most number of ATMs at 688 and the most number of cell sites at 1,078.
*Meycauayan had the highest ratio of hospital beds over the population at .9902.