Cargo throughput handled by Cebu ports expanded 11.24% to 8.038 million metric tons (mmt) for the first quarter compared with the 7.226 mmt recorded in the same quarter last year.
Of the total, domestic cargo accounted for 72.4% or 5.821 mmt, according to data provided by the Cebu Port Authority (CPA). This is 12.16% higher than the 5.19 mmt posted year on year.
Foreign cargoes contributed 27.6% of the total with 2.218 mmt, an 8.9% increase from 2.037 mmt last year.
For the same period in review, container traffic grew 8.5% to 166,699 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) from 153,696.5 TEUs.
Accounting for 60.6% of the total container traffic were domestic boxes reaching 101,075 TEUs, 11.7% more than the 90,460 TEUs handled last year.
The volume of foreign boxes, which represented 39.4% of the total, rose 3.8% to 65,624 TEUs from 63,236.5 TEUs.
Shipcalls, however, declined 6.1% year-on-year to 25,560 vessels from 27,207 vessels.
The number of passengers that used the Cebu gateway in the first quarter also dropped 6.8% to 3.772 million from 4.048 million last year.
CPA earlier said it is planning to transfer its container terminal before the end of the President’s term in 2016 due to the increasing volume of shipments passing through the gateway.
Designed to handle only 250,000 TEUs annually, Cebu port processed 637,629.75 TEUs in 2013. – Roumina Pablo
