Philippines is top 47 in IT industry competitiveness index

At least we're on the list.

When I first saw the article I thought we're not in, considering the continuously growing IT and outsource businesses in the country, and the fact that we've become competitive (in the region at least) in information and communications technologies. We're not tagged as the texting capital (of the world?) for no reason at all--we Filipinos are fond of and are used to being surrounded by everything IT.

This index by The Economist-EIU, is a study that assessed the performance of 64 countries across seven regions, in building and growing their IT industry competitiveness. While we're not in the top 10, it's nice to see that Asia-Pacific countries are on the top five (Japan's no. 2) index performers.

I think this index can also be used to uncover the mystery of the increasing number of IT professionals leaving the country for say, South Korea and Singapore. (Obviously, these countries offer better IT workplace than ours). If your IT department's attrition rate is increasing, think again--ours is an environment pushing our experts to try their hands somewhere else. I know a lot of IT people (read: jack-of-all-trades) who left the country because: either (1) their salaries are too high no company can afford them anymore (believe me!) (2) salaries (or benefits) being offered locally are way behind standard. But that is not to say we're left with no-cream-of-the-crops. In fact, I know people who've done very well to raise awareness of Filipino IT ingenuity, without the bon-voyage. Macalua.com is one, the 'propeller' behind SEO Philippines.

Rank 47 is not bad at all. Really?