Cargo volumes at Philippine ports grew 2% to 265.081 million metric tons (mt) in 2019 from 260.953 million mt in 2018, boosted by growth in foreign cargoes, data from the Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) showed.
Of the total, foreign cargoes accounted for 61% or 161.325 million mt, 3.7% higher than the year-ago figure of 155.563 million mt.
The growth in foreign cargoes was due to the 12.5% increment in export cargoes to 61.626 million mt from 54.77 million mt in 2018. Import cargoes, on the other hand, went down 1% to 99.699 million mt from 100.793 million in 2018.
Domestic cargoes, which contributed 39% to the total, dropped 2% to 103.756 million mt last year from 105.390 million mt in 2018.
Cargoes handled by Luzon ports had a 55.5% share of the total with 147.020 million mt. This was a 3% decline from the 151.054 million mt serviced in 2018.
Visayas ports contributed 15.3% to the total with 40.683 million mt, up 16.5% from the 34.933 million mt handled in 2018.
Cargo volume at Mindanao ports grew 3.2% to 77.378 million mt from 74.966 million mt in 2018.
In terms of containerized cargoes, volume increased 4% to 7.865 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) last year from 7.573 million TEUs in 2018.
Domestic containers handled in 2019 reached 3.165 million TEUs, a jump of 2.5% from 3.087 million TEUs in 2018.
Foreign containers also climbed 5% to 4.700 million TEUs from 4.486 million TEUs previously.
Container traffic handled at Luzon ports last year grew 5.3% to 5.794 million TEUs from 5.502 million TEUs in 2018. The Visayas ports also serviced 4.4% more containers last year with 506,098 TEUs from 484,791.5 TEUs in 2018.
Container traffic at Mindanao ports, however, slightly declined 1.2% to 1.565 million TEUs from 1.585 million TEUs.
Passenger volumes continued to improve, with 83.181 million people using seaports last year, higher by 8.3% from the 76.798 million passengers recorded in 2018.
Of the total, domestic passengers accounted for 42.021 million, which was a 7% growth from the 39.297 million in 2018. Foreign passengers likewise went up 11% to 40.96 million from 37.05 million.
Cruise passenger volume, on another note, fell 55% to just 200,219 passengers in 2019 from 451,063 in 2018.
Roll-on/roll-off (Ro-Ro) traffic increased 11% to 7.779 million vehicles last year from 6.997 million in 2018.
Inward Ro-Ro traffic shot up 10.6% to 3.89 million from 3.516 million while outward Ro-Ro traffic expanded 12% to 3.889 million from 3.481 million.
PPA is responsible for majority of the private and public ports in the country, except the ones under the jurisdiction of Cebu Port Authority and those within the jurisdiction of investment promotion agencies such as Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority and Phividec Industrial Authority.
Photo from PPA
