By DIANN IVY CALUCIN
The City of Manila was named the second most competitive highly urbanized city by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) during the 2022 Cities and Municipalities Competitiveness Index (CMCI) at the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC) in Pasay City on Thursday, Oct. 20.
CMCI is an annual ranking of cities and municipalities in the Philippines for their competitivenes based on the sum of their scores in five categories - Economic Dynamism, Government Efficiency, Infrastructure, Innovation, and Resilience. It was developed by the National Competitiveness Council (NCC) and Regional Competitiveness Committees (RCC) with the assistance of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
The innovation category is the new award announced by the CMCI for this year's prize list.
According to the DTI, the capital city of the country was recognized in four out of five categories: Economic Dynamism, Infrastructure, Resiliency, and Innovation.
Manila City ranked first most competitive in Infrastructure and second in Innovation category.
It also placed fourth most competitive in Economic Dynamism and fifth in Resiliency category.
Vice Mayor John Marvin "Yul Servo" Nieto and Assistant City Administrator Architect Joy Asuncion-Dawis received the awards for the city.
The Competitiveness Bureau of the DTI uses the organization's "Cities and Municipalities Competitiveness Index (CMCI)" tool to determine the winners.
The CMCI tool is designed to generate competitiveness index scores used as a diagnostic tool by local government officials to assess the competitiveness of their city or municipality for identifying areas for improvement and collaboration.