Foreign shipping lines will be repositioning out of the Philippines as many as 30,000 empty containers over the next three months to help ease congestion at Manila ports.
This is in line with Customs Administrative Order No. (CAO) 1-2015, recently issued by the Bureau of Customs (BOC), which has shortened the period of stay in the Philippines for an empty foreign container to 90 days, down from 150 days, before duties and taxes are imposed.
“Shipping lines intend to avail of it (CAO 1-2015) starting today (January 14) by shipping out as many empty containers to free up space, more particularly in the off-dock CYs (container yards),” Atty. Maximino Cruz, general manager of the Association of Shipping Lines (AISL) told PortCalls in a text message.
Foreign carriers, Cruz said, will also be sending sweepers or dedicated vessels that carry out empty containers. The sweepers as well as “slot-swapping arrangements amongst shipping lines,” will be “part of the plan to hasten loading out of empties” from the country.
“Included in the undertaking is to move 30,000 empties to Subic on or before April 30, 2015,” Cruz added, noting that the new directive is a port decongestion measure.
Under CAO 1-2015, an empty container re-exported on or before April 30, regardless of when it arrived in the Philippines, will not be subject to any duties or taxes.
Foreign shipping lines will also “take advantage of the lull in deliveries during the papal visit by loading out empties through the Manila ports and Subic,” according to Cruz.
Terminals at the Port of Manila, as well as at the Subic port, were open during the five-day Papal visit from Jan 15-19. Manila South Harbor was closed on the afternoon of January 18 though because it was near Quirino Grandstand where Pope Francis held mass.
Cruz said the transfer of 30,000 empty containers to Subic is “a result of study and analysis on how to improve productivity of the Manila ports” emerging from discussions among terminal operators and shipping lines in a series of meetings with Cabinet Secretary Jose Rene Almendras, who heads the Cabinet Cluster on Port Congestion.
The AISL GM also clarified that the figure of 30,000 empty containers is “based on assumptions which may change from time to time” and “is only a rough estimate.”
He added that the 30,000 empty containers will be coming from off-dock depots and that “lines will individually negotiate with truckers on the rates.”
“AISL has nothing to do with it (rates) anymore,” Cruz clarified.
Because the Philippines is an importing country, three out of the four import containers that arrive in the country leave as empty containers. In the first weeks of the Manila City truck ban, delivery of empty containers to Manila ports was prohibited during the day, and they ended up filling up off-dock CYs. Up to late last year, container yards within Metro Manila still had high utilization. – Roumina Pablo
Image courtesy of Sailom at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
