Port cargo volume up 12% in 2016

By Imee Charlee C. Delavin
Posted on February 09, 2017
http://www.bworldonline.com/content.php?section=Economy&title=Port-cargo-volume-up-12%-in-2016&id=140372

Throughput hit 249.567 million metric tons (MMT) during the year, against the 2015 volume of 223.672 MMT.

Foreign volumes rose by 12.62%, accounting for 151.604 MMT, against the 134.620 MMT handled in 2015 while domestic cargo accounted for 97.963 MMT, up 10%.

Import volume accounted for 51% of the total cargo volume after posting a 4% increase to 76.781 MMT. Export cargo, meanwhile, rose 23% to 74.822 MMT.

“These are very encouraging figures particularly the export data, which suggests that the sector is very healthy. Trade imbalance has been glaring the past couple of years in favor of imports, and in 2016 we saw that both sectors are almost on equal footing,” PPA General Manager Jay Daniel R. Santiago was quoted as saying in a statement on Wednesday.

“PPA is committed to continue streamlining procedures in favor of the cargo owners in our bid to lure them to bring in and ship out more cargo, this year,” he added.

In particular, PPA said increases in cargo volume were observed at the Manila International Container Terminal and Manila South Harbor for international cargo, North Harbor for domestic cargo as well as Cagayan de Oro, Davao, and Iloilo, accounting for 17.87 MMT or 24.8% of total domestic volume and 9.73% of the total cargo throughput nationwide, followed by Cagayan de Oro, Davao and Zamboanga.

Container traffic on the other hand, registered a 12% increase in volume for 2016 with 6.574 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs).

“Foreign containers inched up 14.11% to 3.973 million TEUs while domestic boxes rose 9.28% to 2.6 million TEUs for the period in review,” PPA said in its statement. Total import boxes amounted to 2.005 million TEUs while export containers are at 1.968 million TEUs, increasing 15.4% and 12.8%, respectively.

Passenger traffic, on the other hand, increased by 8.51% to 68.101 million owing primarily to increasing number of cruise ship arrivals in the country. Foreign volume rose 8.678% to 33.221 million while domestic traffic rose 8.34% to 34.879 million.

The increase is due to the government’s eco-tourism programs encouraging leisure travel to destinations such as Boracay, Puerto Galera, Coron, El Nido, and other emerging tourism sites.

During the period in review, PPA said a total of 430,451 vessels were serviced nationwide, up 8.95% with both domestic and foreign ship calls posting growth of 8.60% and 22.08%, respectively.

“The improved vessel traffic was a result of increased number of trips of passenger vessels as well as the increased shipment of prime commodities like rice, cement, molasses, fertilizers and fuel, among others,” PPA added.