Philippine exports posted the highest growth percentage in cargo volume in the first nine months of the year, pulling up the country’s total cargo throughput by 9%, latest data from the Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) showed.
Throughput for the nine-month period reached 183.730 million metric tons (mmt) from 168.074 mmt registered in the same period last year, according to the PPA.
Foreign volume rose 12.72%, anchored on a 15% increase in export volume from 47.945 mmt in 2015 to 55.134 mmt for the period under review. Similarly, import volume posted a double-digit hike of 10.75% to 61.459 mmt, up from 55.490 mmt in the comparative period last year.
“This is a great indication that Philippine exporters are gearing up to compete in the international market and would not be left out in the run-up to Christmas,” PPA general manager Jay Daniel Santiago explained.
“Likewise, the double-digit growth in the import volume suggests that imported Christmas cargoes have also started to come in,” Santiago said.
“However, even with the strong performance of both sectors, our ports remain (ready) to operate under optimum condition and we do not expect any slowdown in the movement at any given time,” Santiago added.
Domestic volume posted a modest growth of 3.87% to 67.139 mmt from 64.638 mmt last year.
Increases in cargo volume were observed at the ports of Agusan, Mindoro, Bicol, Western Leyte/Biliran and Negros Oriental/Siquijor. The North Port remains as the top performer in domestic cargo volume with a share of 17.87 mmt or 24.8% of the total domestic volume and 9.73% of the total cargo throughput nationwide. It is followed by Cagayan de Oro, Davao, and Zamboanga.
Container traffic, on the other hand, registered a 9.36% increase in volume for the period under review with 4.684 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) handled compared to 4.283 million TEUs processed in the same period last year.
Foreign boxes dominated containerized traffic with an 11.51% hike in volume to reach 2.869 million TEUs compared with the 2.573 million TEUs handled in 2015, while domestic cargoes reached 1.814 million TEUs, or 6.12% higher than the 1.710 million TEUs posted last year. Of the total foreign containers, import boxes totaled 1.450 million TEUs while export boxes reached 1.419 million TEUs, increasing 13.97% and 9.11%, respectively.
As expected, the North Port ranked first in volume of domestic boxes handled during the period with 906,519 TEUs, while the Manila International Container Terminal handled the bulk of foreign containerized cargoes with 1.602 million TEUs followed by the Manila South Harbor with 774,692 TEUs and Davao with 306,203 TEUs.
The Philippines also continues its rise in the cruise tourism industry as passenger volume soared 10.7% to 49.619 million for the period. This is anchored on a 35.78% increase in foreign passenger volume, registering 73,348 from only 54,021 foreign passengers last year, said PPA.
Domestic passenger traffic posted a 10.71% rise to 49.545 million passengers from 44.752 million last year.
Ship calls for the period went up by 7.26% to 306,949, higher than the 286,166 of 2015. Domestic and foreign ship calls grew by 6.99% and 17.67%, respectively.
Image courtesy of franky242 at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
