A survey of Philippine cities’ competitiveness conducted by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) was undertaken from August to November last year with 50 business leaders in 33 cities asked to rank them on a scale of one to 10.
The points considered were the cost of doing business, dynamism of the local industry, economy linkages and accessibility, quality of human resources, infrastructure responsiveness of local government to business needs and the quality of life.
The cities were categorized into metropolitan cities (comprising Metro Manila, Metro Cebu and Metro Davao), mid-sized cities (non-metro cities that have populations greater than 200,000) and small cities (with populations of less than 200,000).
The results of the survey showed that General Santos City got the highest rating from local businessmen with an overall average competitiveness score of 6.7704. Bacolod City ranked second, followed by Baguio.
For metro cities, Davao got the highest ranking with an average competitiveness score of 6.3124. Cebu came in second, followed by Marikina City.
For small cities, San Fernando, Pampanga took first place with a score of 6.3538, followed by Tagaytay and San Fernando, La Union.
The survey also showed that Makati City had the best quality of human resources available for metro cities, while Baguio and Dumaguete took the top spots for the quality of human resources for mid-sized and small cities, respectively.
The most responsive metro city local government went to Marikina, while General Santos took the top spot for mid-sized cities and San Fernando, Pampanga for small cities.