Kalibo among the country’s most competitive municipalities

BY BOY RYAN B. ZABAL

Is your city and municipalities competitive enough vs Asean cities? What makes a city or municipality 

competitive? Is it the people, the natural resources or the government?

This year, 530 local government units were ranked in the latest Cities and Municipalities Competitiveness Index (CMCI) 2014 by the National Competitiveness Council (NCC).

NCC private sector co-chairman Guillermo Luz said the town of Kalibo is qualified as one of the most competitive municipalities in the country for the 2^nd Regional Annual Competitiveness Summit.

On August 7, Kalibo mayor William Lachica and Kalibo vice mayor Madeline Regalado will receive the award from the National Competitiveness Council (NCC) at the Summit Hall C & D of the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC) in Metro Manila.

Under the INVEST project of NCC and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the cities and municipalities are measured by standard indicators of their economic dynamism, infrastructure and government efficiency.

Based on the indicators, local governments can now benchmark their performance against each other and eventually against other cities in the ASEAN. 

 

Last year, Kalibo was ranked 45^th nationwide among the municipalities in overall competitiveness and 109^th in terms of economic dynamism. It ranked 31^st in government efficiency and took the 15^th spot in infrastructure. 

Luz said “top-ranking cities and municipalities will be recognized to encourage the Regional Competitiveness Committees to continue tracking competitiveness indicators to improve their performance.“

How they are ranked?

Economic dynamism of a city/municipality is measured by indicators on growth of annual business registration (number of new and renewed registrations), capital growth of newly registered, number of banks and financial institutions, local productivity and growths on gross sales of registered firms, the number of jobs in the locality, occupancy permits approved and local inflation rate.

 

The chosen indicators for Infrastructure are the distance from city / poblacion to major ports, number of accredited Department of Tourism hotel rooms, number of public and private health facilities and clinics, number of private and public secondary schools and classrooms, availability of electricity and water services, number of internet and cable providers, annual investments in infrastructure by LGU, number of automated teller machines and number of public transportation vehicles.

Government efficiency indicators refers to existing road network, capacity of schools and health service, security, presence of Investment Promotion Unit, business registration efficiency and ratio of LGU collected tax to total LGU revenues.

What is NCC?

NCC, created by virtue of Presidential Executive Order No. 571 in 2006 and amended by E.O. No. 44, is a private-public sector collaboration tasked to build up the long-term competitiveness of the Philippines through policy reforms, project implementation, institution-building, performance monitoring and goal-setting.

In 2013, the competitiveness index on local government units ranked the 122 cities and 163 municipalities across the country which was intended to guide policymakers in designing reforms, to create jobs and to help businessmen in making investment decisions.