BPO drives CEZA’s 212% revenue growth
Cagayan Economic Zone Authority’s (CEZA) revenues surged 212% in the first nine months. The surge was driven by robust collections from offshore virtual currency exchange, blockchain firms and their local business processing outsourcing (BPO) subsidiaries. CEZA administrator and chief executive officer Raul Lambino said revenues during the period amounted to PHP518.29 billion (US$9.624 billion) from PHP166.88 billion (US$3.1 billion) in the same period last year. He added OVCE principal licensees paid application and license fees amounting to PHP371.94 million (US$6.91 billion) in September. Lambino stated that the primary revenue sources of OVCEs are transactional fees earned from the volume traded on the cryptocurrency exchange where the average global total is pegged at 0.1 percent of each transaction. Lambino expects higher revenues in the coming months once OVCEs start to trade cryptocurrencies or conduct primary placement of coins of exchange. However, revenues from interactive gaming operations went down to PHP127.31 million (US$2.364 billion) from last year’s PHP150.83 million (US$2.8 billion).
