Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) chairman Roberto Garcia said he will form a task force that will mainly market facilities of the freeport, two hours north of the the Philippine capital Manila, to potential locators and port users.
The task force, whose composition has yet to be identified, will come up with its own strategies outside of those already being undertaken by Subic Bay International Terminal Corp (SBITC), operator of Subic Bay’s New Container Terminal (NCT) 1.
“We are forming a group primarily to market Subic to possible users such as businessmen, shipping lines and other stakeholders,” Garcia said in his closing remarks at the recent Subic Bay Maritime Conference and Exhibit.
“Hopefully, with the task force, we could properly market Subic to both the local and international market,” he added.
Only less than 10% of NCT 1’s 300,000-twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU) capacity is currently being utilized.
Another terminal, the soon-to-be-opened NCT 2, expects to handle 100,000 TEUs during the first three years of operation. It has a total capacity of 300,000 TEUs a year. It will be run by ICTSI Subic Inc, an affiliate of SBITC.
Only APL and Wan Hai regularly call Subic Bay. Tasman Orient calls every 20 days on its New Zealand service to China.
The Vale Group of Brazil, the world’s biggest iron ore producer, uses Subic Bay as a transshipment hub.
In one of the earlier question-and-answer portions of the maritime conference, Christian Gonzalez, acting Head of Asian Region of International Container Terminal Services, Inc (ICTSI), parent company of SBITC and ICTSI Subic, Inc, said, “Teams from both SBITC and ICTSI have been marketing NCT 1 and 2 to both local and foreign markets the past six months.
“The marketing teams have so far netted at least one shipping line willing to open up service to and from the port to Singapore.”
The shipping line, which was not identified, has committed to bring in 20,000 to 70,000 TEUs annually to the port. No timetable for the start of the service was also announced.
Incentives
Gonzalez said, “I think Subic has all it takes so DOTC (Department of Transportation and Communications) should give it one final push and SBMA should be ready to provide incentives to users.”
In order to attract more businesses, Gonzalez suggested that SBMA provide free staging and marshalling areas for truckers as well as incentives to customs brokers who will set up facilities at the freeport.
PortCalls sources in the container shipping industry have time and again said the only way they will call Subic is if there is enough cargo volume to sustain operations.
