CYBERZONE Properties Inc., a unit of publicly listed Filinvest Land Inc., said it sees no slowdown in the take-up of their expansion projects for the business-process outsourcing (BPO) sector despite US President Donald J. Trump’s “America First” policy.
“I think right after the election of Trump, because of all of his talk about protectionism, some of the BPOs, especially the American ones, were a little bit hesitant to do too much planning for expansion. But in terms of actual take-up, there was no slowdown,” Cyberzone President Joseph Yap said at the sidelines of the company’s listing of its P6-billion bonds at the Philippine Dealing and Exchange Corp. last Friday.
“I think people are more comfortable, so I think they don’t see all the talk of Trump is actually going to translate to any significant effects on the BPO industry,” he said. The company remains to be bullish about the BPO industry and the overall office leasing market in the Philippines, he said.
Yap said the company has already started building office facilities in Mimosa Clark as requested by the Philippine government. These facilities are intended for the second round of the Asean Summit to be held in November of this year.
“We’re building an office building which will be used probably as a press center for meetings or interviews,” he said. Cyberzone Properties has 18 operational office buildings with 239,823 square meters of gross leasable area.
Proceeds of the bond float will be used to finance the construction and operation of five additional buildings in Northgate Cyberzone, in Filinvest City in Alabang and three new towers in Cyberzone Cebu in Lahug, Cebu City, over the next three years. Yap said the company is also looking at some other regional cities that could support the BPO industry, such as in Iloilo, Bacolod, Dumaguete and Davao.
Source: Business Mirror
