From Subic Bay to Spain. Two men ride a bicycle down a road beside stacked Hanjin Shipping containers at the Qingdao Port in China in this file photo. Hanjin Shipping Co., South Korea’s largest shipping line, plans to spend about €55.3 million ($80 million) developing a container terminal in Spain because of rising trade in Europe and the US. The terminal in Algeciras, near Gibraltar, will open in July 2010, the Seoul-based shipping line said in a regulatory filing. The facility, able to handle 1.5 million 20-foot containers a year, will act as a hub for operations in northern Europe, the US east coast, South America and Africa, according to an e-mailed statement. Hanjin, which operates 11 terminals around the world, including a shipyard in Subic Bay, also plans to open new facilities in Holland, Vietnam and Florida by 2011 because of surging global sea-cargo volumes. --Bloomberg

EXPORTERS may find it more difficult to convince the government to extend wharfage discounts for goods sold abroad after a port body was ordered to course such requests to the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC).

A port official said Friday that Transportation Secretary Leandro Mendoza will now have authority to decide on all petitions for a fee cut, whether from exporters or other lobby groups.

“I have been ordered to defer decision on the matter. As of now, shippers have to pay the regular wharfage fee,” Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) general manager Oscar M. Sevilla said, adding that requests for any rate reduction—including port user fees—should now be addressed to the DOTC.

Sevilla maintained that cutting wharfage, or the amount assessed against cargoes for the use of the sea, wharves, piers or any other facility, would have a minimal effect on exporters since it only comprises 5 percent of the total logistic costs of the shippers.

The bulk of exporters’ transport costs are those fees assessed by the international shipping lines.

Last April 20 Malacañang instructed the PPA to reduce wharfage by more than three-fourths. As a result, a 20-foot container was only levied P20 from the previous P391.05.

Although the rate cut was lifted in July, the discount was extended in August, taking effect until December 31, 2007, according to  PPA Memorandum Order 26-2007.

For its part the National Competitiveness Council, a group composed of both private-and public-sector organizations, said it would continue to lobby for discount extension in 2008 as a result of the rising peso against the dollar, which makes exports more expensive when sold abroad.

Wharfage contributes less than P100 million a year to the PPA’s coffers and the reduction for another year cannot disrupt the day-to-day operations of the state firm, an official said.

Earlier, the port agency said it was willing to extend the reduced fee but not for the whole of 2008. An official said the port body is looking at implementing the discounted rates on a per-quarter or a per-semester basis to give it time to study the measure’s effect. 

Based on PPA records, exporters saved P27 million in the first six months of the implementation of the reduced wharfage fee last year.

Harder approval for cuts in port-usage fees

EXPORTERS may find it more difficult to convince the government to extend wharfage discounts for goods sold abroad after a port body was ordered to course such requests to the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC).

THE Bureau of Customs (BOC) has credited a Japanese aid agency for giving it the capacity to undertake postentry audits of all goods that pass through Philippine ports.

CEBU-BASED Cokaliong Shipping Lines Inc. said it would acquire a new vessel this year to expand its domestic missionary routes in Visayas and Mindanao.

SYDNEY—Coal prices rose to a record for a third straight week at Australia’s Newcastle port, a benchmark for Asia, as snowstorms in China cut exports, adding to supply disruptions in Australia and South Africa.

HONG KONG—Hyundai Heavy Industries Co., the world’s largest shipbuilder, said it may make an initial public offering of shares in Hyundai Samho Heavy Industries Co., aiming to benefit from the unit’s orderbook of more than three years.

SINGAPORE—Courage Marine Group Ltd., a Singapore-listed shipping company, won a contract to transport coal from Indonesia to China, where the worst snowstorms in 50 years have disrupted supplies.