How competitive are the Bicol LGUs?

While most of us are still facing the challenges posed by Covid-19, the Department of Trade and Industry and the National Competitiveness Council released the 2019 competitiveness ranking of local government units.

The CMCI is an annual ranking of Philippine cities and municipalities developed by the National Competitiveness Council that looks into an area’s economic dynamism, government efficiency and infrastructure. Scores are determined by the values of the actual data, as well as the completeness of the submitted data. The higher the score of a city or municipality, the more competitive it is.

Legazpi City and Naga City ranked 4th and 8th, respectively, in the national competitiveness ranking for component cities. Legazpi had an overall score of 54.599 out of 100 while Naga gained 51.534.

Legazpi also ranked 10th in economic dynamism, and 1st in terms of Infrastructure component. Naga, meanwhile, ranked 9th in government efficiency and 3rd in Infrastructure.

The municipalities of Daraga in Albay and Pilar in Sorsogon also ranked 12th and 15th Most Improved among First and Second Class Municipalities.

Among the Third to Sixth Class Municipalities, Tigaon in Camarines Sur ranked 9th Most Competitive Municipality nationwide with an overall score of 43.254. It also ranked 5th in the Infrastructure component.

The Municipality of Castilla in Sorsogon also bagged the 6th Most Improved Municipality in in the Third to Sixth Class municipalities category.

The cumulative performance of the component cities and municipalities in the region, however, were not enough to pull the provincial rankings up. Albay ranked 21st out of 76 provinces assessed nationwide. Camarines Sur ranked 31st. Masbate ranked third from the bottom while the rest ranked from 62nd to 64th.