Davide ‘not bothered’ by drop in Cebu’s competitiveness ranking

DAVIDE

DESPITE the steep drop of Cebu province’s rank in the 2017 national competitiveness, Cebu Gov. Hilario Davide III was unperturbed, saying Capitol is doing its best to encourage the local government units in the province to be more competitive.

“I am not bothered with that but this does not mean we do not care about it. We will do our best to improve the systems,” explained Davide.

The results of the 2017 Competitive Index for Provinces by the National Competitive Council (NCC) released on Monday revealed that Cebu was ranked 45th out of the 72 provinces in the country. The index is meant to show the capacity of a local government unit (LGU) to compete in various aspects of governance that could attract national and international investments.

The NCC competitiveness index was first introduced in 2014 based on Executive Order No. 44 issued by former President Benigno Aquino III in 2011, creating the NCC to promote competitiveness among local government units (LGUs) in the Philippines.

At that time, it was only limited to cities and municipalities but in 2015, the NCC decided to include provinces.

For the first Competitive Index for Provinces, Cebu was ranked third. However the province’s performance dramatically slid down to 31st in 2016, and 45th in 2017.

Davide said the competitiveness index of the NCC did not reflect the performance of Cebu in terms of particular aspects, such as efficiency in the delivery of government services and economic stability.

“I don’t think so that it’s just performance (of a certain field). It’s an over-all assessment which is further determined by a set of criteria,” he opined.

There are four criteria for this year’s competitive index, which are government efficiency, economic dynamism, infrastructure and resiliency.

The NCC’s competitive list is usually used as basis to attract potential investors.

Cebu Investments Promotions Office (Cipo) head Roy Soledad, said the index result this year meant that his office would now have to conduct studies to determine how the cities and towns in Cebu could improve their performances.

“We really wanted for Cebu to be more competitive that’s why we have the Provincial Competitiveness Challenge, which is also one of our means to analyze which areas our LGUs needed improvement,” he said.

The 2017 Provincial Competitiveness Challenge, which was started in 2015, is scheduled in September to recognize the cities and municipalities under Cebu province that Cipo assessed as “competitive,” said Soledad.