Eriberto P. Barriga, Jr., Vice President for External Affairs of ICT Davao, Inc. during the Club 888 Forum at Marco Polo Davao said they are receiving more queries on the average of at least four (4) in a month for call center operators with base either in Australia, Canada, India and America.

In fact, he said two of these investors from Australia and America will make ocular inspection of the area.

He said the Admerex of Australia will make their next decision regarding expansion plan in the provinces.

What is good with the industry now is that these investors are looking at the provinces for their expansion projects.

He said Davao City has been listed among the top five destinations for call centers in the country.

"We have also noticed that there is a changing mindset looking at locations where investors noted that they could combine work and leisure here," he said.

He said other consideration when locating in the area is where to go after work or what benefit they get in the area when they do business.

"Their interest now is high compared two years ago," he said.

Barriga however admitted that a lot of work has to be done even as he acknowledged the location of big call center operators in Davao City has led the way.

Davao City at present have 18 call center operators and six of these are big ones among them the Cyber City, Call Box, Sutherland, Western Wats.

He also said that before, property owners are not as aggressive about the ICT industry unlike today when they are willing to retrofit with the requirements of the industry.

About 12 sites are now available for locators and 80 percent of them are willing to retrofit while other property owners already showed interest about the industry.

Meanwhile, he said the Davao industry has big potential despite the size is still small as key players would be able to address all concerns before all investors would locate.

He said the IT group of Davao is again sponsoring a forum on business process outsourcing for human resource and recruitment.

He said this will give venue for the academe and HR of the BPO for them (training institutions) to prepare the proper infrastructure to attract BPO companies.

"They will discuss different development and concepts and confer with school presidents and administrators thus creating BPO champions among the private sector," he said.

The forum was held last August 29, 2008 at the Royal Mandaya Hotel and this was capped with BPO Jobs Fair at the SP building on August 30-31.