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PUBLICLY
listed International Container Terminal Services Inc. (ICTSI)
is not yet sure if it would bid for the second container
terminal at the Subic Bay Freeport, which will be up for
privatization by middle of the year.
ICTSI
chairman and chief executive officer Enrique Razon Jr.
said they are still determining if there will be enough
volume on Subic Bay’s New Container Terminal 1 (NCT 1),
which the company is already operating.
“We’re
still determining if there will be enough volume [on NCT
1],” Razon said when asked if they are interested in
Subic Bay’s second terminal.
NCT 2,
one of the few remaining Philippine international
seaports up for grabs, has a capacity of handling
300,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU), or the same
size as NCT 1.
In an
earlier interview, Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA)
chairman Feliciano Salonga said the agency will allow
ICTSI to bid for the second port facility even if the
publicly listed port operator, which is also the
country’s largest in terms of volume, is already
operating the first terminal.
ICTSI is
also leasing its former terminal in the free port, which
SBMA said it will convert into a general cargo port.
“They
can use it [the old port] as long as they see it fit for
their operations,” Salonga said.
The free
port, however, may face cargo- volume problems in the
future, according to an official of the Maritime
Industry Authority, since there is little manufacturing
activity in the area that needs to be shipped out.
Last
year the
Port of Subic handled 34,601 TEUs, with imports consisting of 17,109 TEUs.
Such volume is thin compared with the
Port of
Manila’s at least 2.5 million TEUs a year.
Based on
SBMA’s projections, there will be a 200-percent increase
in container traffic to about 100,000 to 150,000 TEUs
once its new container terminal becomes fully
operational. And there will be an additional cargo
throughput of about 100,000 TEUs starting 2009 when the
NCT 2 starts operating.
ICTSI
said in an earlier statement it will spend some P473
million for NCT 1, mainly for the construction of an
administration office, motorpool/engineering office,
truck holding area, refueling station and field office.
When the
terminal’s volume reaches 250,000 TEUs per year, the
terminal, it said, should have four rubber-tired gantry
cranes, 22 prime movers, five forklifts, three yard
vehicles and three company vehicles. At the moment, SBMA
owns two quay cranes for use at the terminal.
The
Japan Bank for International Cooperation extended to the
Philippines $141.26 million in official development
assistance in August 2000 to bankroll the project.
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