The Philippines expects a huge jump in its outsourcing business, with earnings forecast at 12.4 billion dollars by 2010 after 3.63 billion dollars in 2006, the Trade and Industry Department said.

Trade and Industry Secretary Peter Favila, in a statement, said that the number of Filipinos working in the sector was expected to jump to 920,764 in 2010 from the current 244,675.

The anticipated upturn will follow efforts to encourage more outsourcing of high-value back-office businss operations in the country, said Favila.

Although call centers have mushroomed and earned 2.69 billion dollars in 2006, the Philippines is also encouraging investments in more sophisticated back-office operations like accounting, software development, engineering and archetectural design, medical, legal and data transcription and animation.

"Our over 75,000 licensed professionals have the technical expertise to perform higher value services" than just call center operations, Favila said.

He cited GENPACT, a member of the General Electric group of companies that had established an 800-seat call center here which they hope to expand to 3,000 employees in the coming years.

Other companies like Dell, Microsoft and Ericcson have also established back office operations here and are looking at expanding in the future, he added.

The Philippines is struggling to catch up to India, the undisputed leader in the sector, as a center for global business process outsourcing.