Philippines and China would give India tough competition in offshore outsourcing operations in the coming years, according to a BPO firm based in the US.

The managing director of NeoIT, Avinash Vashista, told at a seminar on 'Scaling up BPO operations' at Infocom-2003 in Kolkata that both China and Philippines had the capability of providing high quality work at an affordably low cost.

He said Philippines was in a better position compared to India as Filipinos were not required to undergo accent

neutralisation training due to their better English speaking capability owing to the presence of US naval base there.

Compared with China, he said India was in an advantageous position in terms of English speaking capability.

Vashista said that now high-end BPO operations like knowledge-based transactions, claims processing, financial accounting, human resources and complex banking transactions were being outsourced offshore.

This, he said, would give India tremendous opportunity in this sector.

According to NeoIT study, Canada and Ireland were the two countries where quality of work was best, but cost was maximum.