BEING one of the small competitive cities in the country, the city government of Dagupan was deemed to have performed well in having quality human resources and infrastructure but performed poorly in the of cost of doing business for the year 2005.

This was the report of the Asian Institute of Management Policy Center, with the assistance of St. Louis University, during a road show presentation on the State of Competitiveness of the city on October 5, Thursday, held at the Edades Hall, Museum.

AIM said the presentation was meant to guide the city on how to take advantage of its inherent strengths and capabilities to push the city to greater levels of competitiveness.

AIM determined city competitiveness based on the following criteria: cost of doing business, dynamism of local economy, linkages and accessibility, quality of human resources and training, infrastructure, responsiveness of local government unit to business needs, and quality of life.

Based on the 2005 perception-based indicators of Philippine Cities Competitiveness Ranking Project, Dagupan got 6.25 as its overall rating for its competitiveness performance based on the these criteria.

Leah Umali, City Competitiveness Program Manager of AIM Policy Center, explained the scale to assess city competitiveness in which scores for each indicator are converted into a ten-point scale based on national and global benchmarks.

Score 1-2 means very low competitiveness (reform) while 8-10, reflects high competitiveness (sustain).

Out of 37 small cities in the country, Dagupan was ranked 31 for having the highest cost of doing business in 2005, garnering an over-all score of 5.33. Cost of doing business includes informal fees in local government (otherwise known as bribery) where the city ranked number 31 out of 37 small cities.

Nevertheless, the city was ranked number 1 in human resources and training garnering the score of 7.89. The city was also ranked number 1 in terms of number of tertiary educational institutions and vocational schools among other small cities.

Dr. Reynaldo Bautista of SLU said there were available skilled workers and presence of relevant training institutions and programs in the city last year and advised the city officials to stay on the top.

Among the cited strongest indicators of the city were, average of rent commercial space garnering the perfect score of 10, number of tertiary and educational institutions and vocational schools (10), number of banks and leading institutions (10), number of theft per 100,000 population (10), hospitals beds per 100,000 population (9), Cellular phone signals in the city are always adequate (8.3),connecting to telephone lines from other services providers is easy (7.9), the city’s rest and recreational facilities like cinemas, bookstores, malls, etc, are adequate (7.8), and internet service providers (ISPs) are reliable with eh score 7.7.

Weakest indicators were, local inflation rate with the score of 1, incidence of murder (1), cost of power for industrial use (1), health worker (3), average cost of acquiring telephone services (3), price of basket gods (4), number of ISP providers in the city (4), market size (population size) with the score of 4, average household income (4) and international entry and exit points such as airports, seaports, and other transshipment points are located near the city (4.10).

Mayor Benjamin Lim, who was applauded for being cited as one of the outstanding city mayors in the country, thanked the AIM for presenting the city’s weakest indicators but suggested to provide the city a comparative report in order to assess the city’s performance to other cities.

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