The yards of the members of the Container Depot Association of the Philippines (CDAP) may be full but no one is ecstatic due to the slow trade.
“While we are able to break out into a bit of a grin these days as our yards are full, we are still very wary about our business prospects for next year,” CDAP president Carlo Fontanilla said at the sidelines of the association’s Christmas Party last week.
CDAP is a 14-member association that operates and maintains container yards dedicated to empty boxes nationwide.
“At the moment, our revenues only come from storage fees while other sources of revenues (associated with healthy trade) such as from constant withdrawal of containers and repairs brought about by the wear and tear of boxes remain dull,” Fontanilla told PortCalls.
“We expect very minimal growth in terms of revenues amid full utilization of our yard,” he said, noting that the slow business will drag until next year.
Manila ports are now nearing capacity for empty containers and spillovers are diverted to off-dock container yards like those operated by CDAP.
As of this writing, CDAP container yards are 90% full but operators are holding back any expansion amid slowing export growth.
Exports in October continued to head south, dropping 14.6% to $4.788 billion from $4.088 billion in the same month last year, according to latest data from the National Statistics Office.
