American company Focus Communications will open its call center in Bacolod City within the year, its first in the Philippines, Councilor Jocelle Batapa-Sigue, chairperson of the Bacolod IT Focus Team, said yesterday.

Batapa-Sigue said the Ogden, Utah-based company does not have a registered business name in the Philippines yet but it is already preparing to list-up with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

It will have a start-up operations of 250 seats and will occupy the Ceferina Building at Lacson Street that will be turned into Monfort IT Centre.

The Sangguniang Panlungsod last week endorsed the application of Monfort IT Centre for declaration as IT building by the Philippine Economic Zone Authority.

Batapa-Sigue said that executives of Focus Communications, during their visit to schools Bacolod, were impressed by the way students engaged them in conversational English.

They preferred us because we have most number of IT graduates compared to other regions and we have the put the infrastructure in place, she said.

What also made a difference was that the Bacolod IT Focus Team were able to provide answers to their questions, she added. Two other companies will open their call centers in the city in the first half of the year, I-Solutions Outsource Asia, the first Canadian call center in the Philippines, and Teleperformance, which is opening in Bacolod its first call center outside Metro Manila.*NLG

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