BPO COUNCIL LAUNCHED IN NEW YORK CITY,
RP PRAISED AS OUTSOURCING DESTINATION

Manila, Philippines, June 7, 2007… Consul General Cecilia B. Rebong of the Philippine Consulate General in New York, USA reported to the Department of Foreign Affairs that the Philippine American Chamber of Commerce-New York (PACC-NY) formally launched the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) Council on 4 April 2007 at the Philippine Center in Manhattan to promote the Philippines as a business process outsourcing destination.

In a reception attended by over 40 senior corporate executives, the launching of the BPO Council jumpstarted a series of events of the Chamber and the new Council in order to sustain interest in the Philippines as an offshore destination, and to create a network among companies doing or planning to do information technology business in the country.

 “The BPO Council was formed earlier this year with the support of the Consulate General and the Philippine Trade and Investment Center in New York. The Council is headed by its first elected president, Mr. David Kinnear, who is also the president of DDC HRO, one of the world’s leading providers of onshore/offshore data processing and human capital BPO solutions,” Consul General Rebong said.

BPO Council President Mr. Kinnear enumerated the vast opportunities for companies that look into the Philippines for their BPO operations. Speaking from experience, Mr. Kinnear’s company, HRC DDO, has been operating in Tacloban, Leyte for the last 15 years with ten primary BPO facilities and over 3,000 local IT workers. The company’s website (http://www.ddchro.com) comments that that Philippines’ location and its people are “well-suited for more complex BPO activity where quality, not just cost reduction, is considered.”

“The time has come for the Philippines to take center stage in the world outsourcing scene. This may very well be because the BPO Council is positioned in New York right at the center of global business people to promote the Philippines as outsourcing destination,” Mr. Kinnear added.

During the reception, Ms. Josephine Romero, Trade Representative at the Philippine Trade Office in New York, discussed the advantages of the Philippines as a BPO destination. “The Philippine outsourcing industry generated over $3 billion in revenues in 2006 and has created a cumulative total of 250,000 jobs in such areas as call centers, software development, animation, legal and medical transcription,” she explained.

She added that engineering design and back office operations in finance, accounting and such business processes serve as equity and mergers and acquisition analysis.

PACC-NY President Mr. Rene “Butch” Meily said that the Philippine outsourcing has taken a giant step forward with the launch of the new BPO Council. Mr. Meily, who served as Special Adviser on IT Matters to former Philippine Ambassador to the United States Albert del Rosario, is an executive of the Philippine Long Distance and Telephone Company, the country’s largest telecommunications company and an active supporter of the country’s IT program.

In his message, JP Morgan Chase Senior Vice President   for   Card  Services  David  De Lellis    praised    the      Philippines      as    an “increasingly attractive destination for outsourcing business.”

Consul General Cecilia Rebong remarked during the program that formation of the Council is “yet another manifestation of a dynamic and productive public-private sector cooperation to generate interest in the Philippines’s offshoring capabilities.”

Established in 1920, the PACC-NY is one of the oldest bilateral business organizations in the United States.