Baguio soars to 15th place in competitiveness survey

EDITORIAL

As Baguio City celebrates its 101st founding anniversary this month of September, the tourist resort soared to 15th place out the 136 cities assessed in the 2013 Cities and Municipalities Local Economic Development Competitiveness Survey redeeming itself from its poor showing in the 2012 edition of the annual survey.

Mayor Mauricio Domogan said the city ranked 21st in economic dynamism, ninth in government efficiency and 19th in infrastructure development in the survey done annually by the National Competitiveness Council (NCC) to assess the performance of some 500 municipalities and cities in the country.

“Our current standing was achieved through our unity, teamwork and the pooling of our facts and data which boosted our overall presentation.  We have once again proven that with a solid partnership and teamwork, we were able to initially project where the city stands,” the mayor said.

In the 2012 survey, the city had no ranking and was even beaten by Tabuk City which placed 38th.  It turned out that the city departments supplied incomplete and conflicting data and therefore failed to satisfy the factors and indicators provided under the survey.

Since then, the city worked on enhancing its data gathering to supply complete and accurate facts to the survey committee and reflect the city’s true standing in competitiveness.

“While we made a very good rating this year, we should further improve our work and our cooperation and teamwork,” the mayor said.

The top ten cities in the latest survey were Makati City, Cagayan de Oro, Naga, Davao, Marikina, Iloilo, Cebu, Manila, Valenzuela and Paranaque.

Cagayan de Oro, Iloilo, San Fernando (Pampanga) and Butuan City made up the top three cities in the 2012 ranking.

Congratulations to Baguio officials and residents as the city celebrates its foundation anniversary and as it moves forward in  progress and development.