President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has made the Philippines a global powerhouse in the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry, and the next administration should build on this accomplishment.

Deputy Presidential Spokesperson Gary Olivar and Director Dennis Arroyo of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) made the observation at a media briefing this morning in Malacanang.

“From a virtual non-entity in 2001,” Olivar said, “the President has lifted the BPO sector to the status of a sunshine industry that generated last year $7.3 billion in revenue, or about 4 to 5 percent of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP).”

The BPO industry, Olivar added, insulated the country from the global economic downturn by generating close to half a million jobs in 2009. In 2001, he noted, the fledgling industry only 2,000 workers.

For his part, Arroyo said the government expects the industry to generate some $13 billion revenue by 2011. He added that by 2020, the amount could go up to as much as $100 billion in a global industry of $500 billion, or about 1/5 of the market share.

If the next administration does the right thing, the Philippines could become number one in the industry, considering the telecommunications and digital infrastructure already in place and the high demand for the English-proficient, highly-skilled, and easily trainable Filipino workforce.

With a population of 90 million, the Philippines is next only to India’s one billion population as the world’s top BPO outsourcing destination.

The two officials said the country’s $7.3 billion BPO revenue last year is just behind India’s $9 billion earnings.

Arroyo called on Congress to pass the pending bill creating a Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), which will institutionalize the Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT), which now oversees the country’s digital infrastructure.

The NEDA chief said the next government should likewise continue the President’s educational thrust. He pointed out that right now more than 5,000 public high schools have been given computers, with 4,000 of them connected to the Internet.

During the briefing, Arroyo disclosed a plan by PLDT to use the Meralco power posts for broadband connections.

According to Arroyo, this will further spur growth of the ICT and BPO sector, especially in the fields of legal and medical transciptions, animation and 3D design, and software development.