Martin Conboy, chief officer of Callcentres.net said that this was the result of a survey of 824 organizations throughout the region representing call centers in China, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand.

But while the three countries would enjoy sharp growth in call centers located here, the rest of the countries in the region would have relatively flat or little growth, Conboy said.

The Philippines, which has about 20,000 call center stations or "seats" this year would see the number double to about 40,000 seats by 2004, Conboy said.

India, which now has the most call center seats in the region, would see their number rise from 96,000 this year up 65 percent to 158,000 next year.

China, which has 38,000 seats, is expected to see the number rise by 41 percent to 53,500, he added.

Each call center seat usually counts for an average of 1.6 jobs, he added.

Conboy said that of the three countries India had the lowest operating costs per call center seat followed by the Philippines and China.

He said that Philippine call centers were well regarded abroad but advised that operators of such businesses should assure the quality of the service and provide stress training to the operators so they can better handle calls from aggressive or angry customers.

Conboy said 72 percent of those manning call center stations in the Philippines were young women who sometimes could not deal with angry callers and might even burst into tears.

Call centers in Asia are widely used for customer service, telemarketing and debt and data collection.

SPACE.WIRE