06/11/2023
11 REASONS WHY CEBU IS A GOOD PLACE TO INVEST!
The Philippines continues to gain positive investment ratings from reputable business-grade assessors, especially Fitch and Standard & Poor. It is now ranked no. 9 among the Top 100 Best Countries to Invest in Real Estate. Emerging as better place for investors outside the national capital Manila, Cebu is being considered an excellent investment haven. Here are the 11 main reasons why you consider investing in Cebu:
1. Accessibility and Location
Straddling on three administrative regions, Cebu is the main travel gateway into central and southern Philippines, with more domestic air and sea linkages than any other city in the country. Its international airport ranks second to Manila in terms of domestic and international passenger traffic, in-bound and out-bound. A major trans-shipment point of exports and imports, its international seaport brings life and dynamic to its trading connections with other countries in the Asia Pacific.
2. Productive Labor Force
Ranked No. 8 in the Top 100 Business Process Outsourcing destinations in the world, it provides services to 55 BPO companies (in-bound and out-bound) that hires over 125,000 men and women.
3. Rapid Economic Growth
Cebu’s gross regional product (GRP) fetches an average PHP 396 billion a year since 2011, of which PHP 281 billion is credited as gross city product (GCP) of Cebu City, alongside nine-through-10% annual economic growth.
4. Tourism Boom
Foreign and domestic tourist arrivals averaged 1.2 million men, women, and children since 2011, with an average yearly sales turnover of PHP 22.6 billion. Most of the visitors come from South Korea, United States, Japan, Taiwan, Canada, China, Australia, United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, and Germany.
5. Vibrant Cosmopolitan Life
Tourism influx in the province, which exceeded the 1.3 million mark in 2012, is being serviced by 393 hotels and 12,500 condominium units throughout the island, which also hosts a large array of entertainment, cultural, and leisure amenities.
6. Center of Education
Cebu’s top 20 colleges and universities, considered among the best in the country, turns up world-class, English-proficient graduates each year. Aside from the premier government-owned University of the Philippines, most of the other learning institutions are ran by the Roman Catholic Church and located within the central part of the city.
7. Growing Commercial Center
The business district hosts both international and local companies, aside from the government-ran economic processing zones in nearby Mactan and Danao cities, and secondary business districts in the cities of Cebu and Mandaue. Expansion has made way for the construction of taller buildings.
8. Magnet of Migration
Domestic migration of 5.2% a year brought Cebu’s population to around 5.6 million men, women, and children (1.12 million households), about which 61% are renting.
9. Peace and Order
Crime incidence remains lower than 1.1% on average in the city, where the regional headquarters of the Philippine National Police and the central Philippine command center of the armed forces are located.
10. Money Transfer Center
Up to PHP 587 billion ($11.75 billion) in remittances from more than 25,000 overseas workers changed hands each year in 24 banks. This amount is spent largely on various household commodities and services available in the city.
11. Investor-friendly Government
Local governments offer tax holidays to foreign and domestic companies in exchange for the hiring of top-rate local graduates.
-Aniceto Abbey Canturias
