BPO can match garment high, says Maharaj

June 13, 2009 11:51:29 AM

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A well functioning Business Process Outsourcing market in Fiji can match the high point of Fiji's dwindling garment industry, said Suva business consultant Atma Maharaj.

In his address at the Fiji Institute of Accounting in Nadi yesterday,Maharaj said with the current status of the BPO market in Fiji and assuming that Fiji does nothing to grow it, it still has the ability to create jobs.

"In terms of the current statistics, based on information that I have collected from the industry itself and my own research, the number of BPOs is about 12, the number of people directly employed in the BPO industry in Fiji is about 800, total capital investment since start up is about $20 million and export dollars earned annually is about $25 to $30million,"Maharaj said.

"Looking at industry strength and Fiji statistics, if we do nothing, based on what we know and players that are already in place, companies that are about to start, just looking at that alone and knowing what happens in the BPO industry in terms of the first quarter we might need 25 seats, next quarter another 25 seats ... just taking that alone, we would have around 5000 jobs in five years or 10,000 jobs in 10 years without doing much more
than our current approach.

If we compare that with the garment industry; at its peak, we had 18-20,000 people employed in the industry, and that was just catering for Australian and US markets. And 80 percent of employees were women.  At its peak, the industry was earning 200-300 million so if you can have 18-20,000 in garment industry, 80 percent of them women, well here we can
create jobs for both male and female and all age groups," said Maharaj.

He said however that while the numbers looked good when considering potentials in the BPO industry, the question was whether Fiji wanted it or not and whether it was going to do something about it or not.

He said while things were moving in the BPO sector, with a number of companies expected to launch their BPO projects soon, the industry needed a vision and a development plan.