CARGO throughput in Philippine ports rose 3.43% year-on-year to 168.98 million metric tons (mmt) in the first 10 months of the year, from 163.38 mmt, with 17 port management offices posting substantial hikes in volumes, data from the Philippine Ports Authority showed.
Of the total throughput, foreign cargoes contributed 104.649 mmt, 4.26% higher than the 100.369 mmt in the same period last year. Domestic cargoes accounted for 64.335 mmt, a 2.1% improvement from than last year’s 63.01 mmt.
Private ports handled 104.54 mmt or 61.37% of the total while government ports contributed 64.44 mmt or 38.63%.
PMOs Tagbilaran, Ormoc and San Fernando still enjoyed then biggest growth at 69.53%, 37.86% and 27.38%, respectively.
These gains were attributed to increases in domestic shipments of aggregates, heavy equipment and construction materials and exportation of limestone ores; more shipments of copra and coco products, fertilizer raw materials and exports of sulfuric acid and copper; and increases in coal imports and sand exports.
The country’s imports and exports grew notably in October.
Among the 24 PMOs, Surigao remained the top performer, handling 28.60 mmt or 16.9% of the total cargo throughput. Surigao’s private ports aggregately surpassed Manila International Container Terminal’s foreign cargo traffic, although the latter is a single port.
PMO Batangas followed closely with 17.83 mmt while PMO North Harbor came third with 16.14 mmt and PMO Limay in fourth recording 13.5 mmt.
The country’s containerized cargo traffic for the first 10 months grew slightly to 4.365 million 20-foot equivalent units (TEU), 1.58% higher than the 4.297 million TEUs in the same period last year.
North Harbor maintained the top spot in handling domestic containerized cargoes, posting 751,768 TEUs while the MICT still logged the largest volume of foreign containerized cargoes with 1.491 million TEUs. South Harbor followed with 780,010 TEUs and Davao with 213,180 TEUS.
Shipcalls increased 3.73% to 298,966 in the first 10 months of 2013 from 288,213 in the same period in 2012.
Domestic shipcalls increased 4.02% while foreign shipcalls dropped 5.41%.
The PPA noted that although fewer vessels visited the ports during the period, they came in larger sizes and carrying capacity. –– Roumina M. Pablo
