Philippine cargo throughput grew modestly in the first eight months of the year due to the strong performance of foreign cargoes, particularly exports.
Data from the Philippine Ports Authority showed volume from January to August inched up 4.31% to 122.463 million metric tons (mmt) from 117.403 mmt in the same period last year.
Foreign cargo traffic went up 9.88% to 74.642 mmt from 67.931 mmt. Export volume jumped 16.85% to 37.978 mmt from 32.501 mmt last year. Import volume rose 3.48% to 36.663 mmt from 35.429 mmt.
Domestic cargo volume, on the other hand, dropped 3.34% to 47.471 mmt from 49.471 mmt.
Increases in volume were observed in 15 ports, with Calapan and Puerto Princesa enjoying the biggest increase of 46.27% and 50.54%, respectively.
Declines, however, were felt mostly in South Harbor, Cotabato, Ormoc and Iloilo.
The Manila International Container Terminal continues to be the country’s top performer in terms of cargo volume, cornering 10.75% of the total followed by Batangas with 10.68% and North Harbor with 9.39%.
Container throughput
Container traffic grew 2.13% from January to August to 3.317 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) from 3.248 TEUs in the same period last year.
Foreign boxes accounted for 2.037 million TEUs, up 1.69% from 2.003 million TEUs in the comparable period last year.
Import boxes reached 1.058 million TEUs from 998,857 TEUs or an improvement of 5.95%. Export boxes, on the other hand, declined 2.55% to 979,002 TEUs from 1.004 million TEUs.
Domestic box volume inched up 2.83% to 1.280 million TEUs from 1.244 million TEUs.
During the period in review, North Harbor handled the most domestic containers and MICT the most foreign containers followed by South Harbor and Davao.
Shipcalls went up 0.91% or from 229,921 in 2011 to 232,006. Domestic shipcalls rose 1.15% while foreign shipcalls declined 6.49%.
Passenger volume hit 34.32 million, up 1.21% from last year.
Photo courtesy of Asian Terminals, Inc
