The need for the creation of an economic zone in Bacolod City and Negros Occidental to boost the local IT sector was stressed by Councilor Jocelle Batapa-Sigue, chairperson of the Bacolod Information Technology Focus Team, yesterday.

Batapa, whose group attended the Asian Summit of Information and Communications Technology Leaders in Cebu last week, said in a press release that an ecozone is vital if both the city and the province have to be globally-competitive.

ICT is one of the 15 sub-sectors identified to be part of the ASEAN Economic Council to be created by all Southeast Asian countries by 2015.

Batapa said the lack of coordination between Bacolod and Negros Occidental, and Bacolod and Iloilo in the ICT sector is very apparent when they are placed side by side with Cebu, which aggressively takes the lead in the sector.

The Philippine Economic Zone Authority PEZA, headed by director general Lilia De Lima, had already offered its full support to the efforts of the Sangguniang Panlungsod to make Bacolod a more profitable site for investments by converting the existing Bacolod Airport into a special economic zone.

Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry president, Samie Lim, had earlier said that Bacolod City is just at the right time in positioning itself as one of the next IT hubs in the country since the Philippines is just starting to take off in the business process outsourcing industry.*NLG

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