The Philippines is now the Call-Center Capital of the World - LA TIMES

Presently, the outsourcing industry in the Philippines is the number 1 choice for employment among young Filipinos. More than 1 million strong Filipinos are now now working for a call center or other outsourcing business, which serves mostly US companies.

Philippines has cheap labor, highly skilled labor market, and can speak and understand English well which are invaluable to a growing list of U.S. companies. US Companies use them to perform customer service for their company, generate sales leads, data entry, format documents and read medical scans and legal briefs.

Filipinos work the nightshifts and handles angry Americans, they earn about $700 a month, more than many general physicians earn in the Philippines.

Philippines call-center industry has already overtaken India as the call-center capital of the world, though India is still the top information technology outsourcing destination.

By the year 2016, experts said that the Philippines BPO industry will be able to achieve $25 billion in revenue, that will be about 10% of the Philippines economy and as much as the total amount expected to be sent home by the 11 million Filipino nurses, sailors, musicians and others working overseas.

Source LA TIMES

Philippines is most improved ASEAN nation according to U.S Firms Survey

MANILA, Philippines- American firms and the ASEAN Business Outlook Survey of 2014 reported that the Philippines is the "most improved" country in the Association of Southeast Asian Nation (ASEAN).

The latest survey results shows the  U.S. firms confidence and satisfaction on the Philippines politics and business practices. U.S. firms drop their supposed corruption rate from 91 percent in 2003 to 59 percent as of today. Meanwhile, their adverse thoughts on the countries infrastructure also deteriorate to 55 percent from 69 percent within the same period of time.

The survey also showed that 87 percent of the total survey respondents seemed to be contented on the Philippine trained personnel’s availability.

“Highlight in the region is the marked improvement of the Philippines. The country has experienced high levels of growth recently and our survey shows why, as business leaders there indicate higher levels of satisfaction across almost all surveyed factors as compared to five years ago,” said Simon Kahn, chair of AmCham Singapore.

However, corruption, insufficient infrastructure and the tax structure continues to challenge the Philippines, based on the survey which is why Singapore remains on the top of the list.

“Singapore remains one of the most attractive countries in Asean to do business, with low levels of corruption, excellent infrastructure, and predictable laws and regulations,” said Kahn.

Japan’s Nikkei fell 6.4%, Philippines Plunged 7%

Japan’s Nikkei has accelerated its losses and fell 6.4% today. It has officially entered a bear market after dropping 20% since May 22.

"In my personal opinion, this is deep consolidation phase. I would expect that that's going to continue for another 3-4 weeks but afterwards I do think earnings visibility in Japan is going to pull shares higher again," said Jesper Koll, managing director at JP Morgan Securities.

However, the Philippines Stock Exchange PSEi Index top Japan’s losses with a 6.8% plunge today of its own. The PSEI Index is down 17% from its May 15 high.

Thailand and Indonesia are also suffering, The Stock Exchange of Thailand SET Index has dropped 15% since peaking on May 21, while Indonesia’s Jakarta Stock Exchange Composite Index has fallen 12% since topping out on May 20.