CARGO and passenger traffic at the country’s seaports grew in double digits during the first two months of the year, thanks to the healthier foreign container throughput and stronger domestic cargo volume, data from the Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) showed.
Strong foreign cargo volumes—driven by robust imports that penciled a growth of 19.61 percent to 12.893 million metric tons (MMT) and the export volume that rose 15 percent pushed total Philippine cargo volume to reach the 34.672- MMT mark in the first two months of the year, a 13-percent rise from 30.645 MMT.
Domestic cargo throughput, meanwhile, reached 15.793 MMT, or a modest 7.73-percent increase, compared to its year ago level.
“The growth in cargo volume was observed mainly in the ports of Dapitan, Marquez, Nasipit and Limay enjoying the biggest growth at 129.78 percent, 95.51 percent, 93.57 percent and 63.79 percent, respectively,” PPA officer in charge Raul T. Santos reported on Wednesday.
Containerized cargo volume, on the other hand, likewise, went up by 5.23 percent to 958,628 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs), from 910,955 TEUs for the period in review.
Broken down, domestic boxes increased 5.30 percent to 374,978 TEUs, from 356,121 TEUs a year earlier, while foreign boxes posted a 5.19-percent hike, from 554,834 TEUs in 2015 to 583,650 TEUs this year.
“As expected, Manila’s North Harbor port continues to rank first in terms of volume of domestic containerized cargo handled during the period with 172,694 TEUs,” Santos said.
The Manila International Container Terminal, on the other hand, continued to handle the largest volume of foreign containerized cargo with 328,309 TEUs, followed by South Harbor with 150,422 TEUs.
“Moreover, private ports handled 20.16 MMT, or 58.14 percent, of the total cargo volume nationwide, while government ports accounted for 14.51 MMT, or 41.86 percent,” Santos said.
Passenger volume, for the period under review, also reached 10.20 million, or 11.56 percent higher, compared to the volume registered in the same period last year.
Meanwhile, shipcalls for the period went up by 14.27 percent, from 59,690 in 2015, to 68,209 this year. Domestic and foreign shipcalls grew by 13.99 percent and 26.34 percent, respectively.
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i’m a weekly batangas port user, a very long queue of vehicles can be noticed outside the port, understandably the port has limitation but why make them line and enter the port not knowing which ship they ride and what time they will leave? why not implement those with confirmed booking can enter. the system is flawed and design so the port personnel can take advantage of lagay by pulling out small cars from the line. why is it that ships are always 30 minutes late in departure and no ships leave at the same time ? and when one enters the marshalling area, no sign that says this line is for … the whole system is a mess