THE country’s cargo throughput for the first nine months of the year slumped 6.86% to 109.58 million metric tons (mmt) from 117.65 mmt in the same period last year (see table).
The Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) blamed the drop on the global economic slowdown.
Domestic cargo volume contracted 6.82% to 51.65mmt from 55.43mmt, or 3.78mmt in absolute terms.
Total foreign cargo throughput from January to September this year dipped 6.88% to 57.93mmt from 62.21mmt last year.
Export and import cargoes fell 14.3% and 1.82%, respectively.
Ports that posted positive performance in the first nine months include the North Harbor, San Fernando, Calapan, Puerto Princesa, Iloilo, Pulupandan, Tacloban, Ozamiz, Cotabato, Davao and General Santos.
Those that suffered a decline in cargo throughput were Cagayan de Oro, down 50.15%; Surigao, 43.11%; Nasipit, 27.39%; Batangas, 11.64%; Ormoc, 11.52%; Dumaguete, 11.16%; Legazpi, 6.68%; Limay, 6.24%; Zamboanga, 2.61%; Iligan; 1.77%; and Tagbilaran, 0.18%.
The Cagayan de Oro port also recorded a significant drop of 65.76% in export volume for the period; imports dipped 2.14%.
Substantial declines in export cargo were also observed in Dumaguete, Nasipit, Pulupandan, Surigao and Ormoc ports while cuts in import cargo volume was noted in South Harbor, North Harbor, Batangas, Dumaguete, Iloilo, Cagayan de Oro and Iligan.
Foreign cargo volume grew in the MICT, North Harbor, San Fernando, Legazpi, Puerto Princesa, Tacloban, Ozamiz, Davao and General Santos ports.
A bright spot was containerized trade, with box cargo volume growing 6.09% to 3.073-million TEUs from January to September this year compared to the same period last year of 2.896-million TEUs.
Foreign container cargo traffic jumped 11.98% to 1.9-million TEUs this year from 1.7-million TEUs in 2007. This more than offset the 2.38% drop in domestic container traffic from 1.19-million TEUs to 1.159-million TEUs.
Container growth was recorded in the ports of Batangas, Puerto Princesa, Tacloban, Tagbilaran, Nasipit, Davao and General Santos.
Domestic shipcalls grew marginally by 0.57% to 227,314 from 226,020 or a difference of 1,294.
Foreign shipcalls did not do much better, posting a 0.43% decline to 7,494 from last year’s 7,526.
For September alone, port traffic decelerated from the same month last year. All key indices dipped for September 2008 from September 2007: cargo throughput by 28.43%; containerized cargo, 3.68%; passenger volume, 5.96% and shipcalls, 7.18%.
