Among The Best Asian Cities For Investment

Recently, Cebu has been recognized as among the cities in Asia that may attract more investments in the incoming years. In fact, Cebu has figured positively in past surveys on investments and tourism. (Cebu is turning out to be the kind of place where I want to retire.... he...he..he.. it should have scored higher in the Quality Of Life survey)

This year, the cities of Quezon and Davao have joined the Queen City of the South in the race for global excellemce.

This is good news for the Philippines. Other cities in the country have no more "excuses" not to excel. I'd really be very happy to have more Philippine cities improving economically and more people rising out of poverty. Having more trade or business in the area is to me the best solution to poverty ---- not dole-outs. Dole-outs only make the receiver weaker and more dependent on the donor as can be seen in the case of Africa. Anyway, experts have long been saying that financial poverty arises because of the poverty of the mind (a lot still have this wrong notion that being poor is the will of God).

It may be recalled that most Filipinos' favorite "reasons" for the country's poor economic performance in the past have been government corruption, lack of support from our politicians, adventurism of our senators and congressmen etc. The irony is that these same things didn't stop Indian businessmen from being successful in assisting their country to reach economic heights. India is now the number one BPO destination in the world.

With the American dollar getting weaker each passing month, many countries are expecting more companies in the USA to outsource their services to countries like India and the Philippines to trim down expenses. Other emerging BPO areas in the Philippines should prepare for this development. I want to see Dumaguete City on the next list of ideal BPO investment sites in the world--- they have the infrastructure and human resources.

I finished reading today an inspirational book "The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari." It underscored the fact that the human mind is powerful enough to actualize thoughts. This is the same statement made by the popular book "The Secret." Maybe if we can all have this single thought of transforming the Philippines into an economic success, the situation of our people will improve. Let's stop all these negativity and crab mentality; these are not helping any of us, particularly the poor.

Let's adopt the "kaizen" mentality, the desire to continually improve ourselves. If each of us put all our energies in improving ourselves as well as the lives of others, we improve our society and eventually our country.