The Philippine information technology and business process management may grow between 5 percent and 6.5 percent this year as most companies are expected to expand operations, an official said on Wednesday.

In the "Laging Handa" public briefing, Rey Untal, president and CEO of IT and Business Process Association of the Philippines, said despite the coronavirus pandemic, which prompted 70 percent of the workforce to work from home, the IT-BPM industry grew last year.

"At the end of 2020, if we're going to look at the headcount, we grew by 1.8 percent and if we're going to look on the revenue, we grew by 1.4 percent," he said, describing the growth rate, while not that huge, was significant since only few industries have grown during the time of pandemic.

He said by the end of last year, the IT-BPM sector's direct employment hit to 1.32 million while the revenue rose to $26.7 billion.

The official could not tell yet if the industry has expanded also during the first quarter.

However, based on his conversation with the country heads, he said, "many of them said that they have lots of demands being managed up to now and that is a big indication that the industry continues to be lively."

Asked of the industry's projection for this year, Untal said, "Based on our forecast, we are anticipating the BPO growth for the year will be anywhere between 5 to may be 6.5 percent."

He noted that based on a recent survey that they conducted in the country, 87 percent of the respondent companies in the BPO sector said that they expect to grow this year by "anywhere between 5 to 15 percent."

Untal said the remaining companies, which were somewhat small, responded that they will not expand.

Meanwhile, Untal said they welcome the decision of the government to start vaccinating against COVID-19 the A4 priority group or economic frontliners, including those in the BPO sector.

He said over a million doses of vaccines have been procured by some companies under the BPO sector through a tripartite agreement with the government and the manufacturing companies.

The vaccines are expected to arrive by third and fourth quarter, he said. Celerina Monte/DMS