A Bureau of Customs (BOC) technical working group is looking into the request of Mindanao Container Terminal (MCT) port users to relocate the designated examination area (DEA) in Cagayan de Oro City, which houses two x-rays for cargo inspection, from outside MCT to within its premises.
Atty. Agaton Teodoro Uvero, deputy commissioner of the BOC’s Assessment and Operations Coordinating Group, told participants at the recent PortCalls-organized Mindanao Shipping Conference 2014 in Cagayan de Oro City that he was awaiting the group’s findings but that the request was “doable”.
At the same conference, PIE-MO Industries Association president Augustus Adis included the relocation of the DEA in the private sector wish list he presented. PIE-MO Industries Association groups locators within the Phividec Industrial Authority economic zone.
Adis said the transfer would eliminate double handling charges. As it is, cargoes subject to x-ray are hauled out of the MCT into the DEA, incurring additional charges for the consignee.
The ideal situation is for the x-ray machines to be within the MCT so that cargoes for x-ray screening need not leave the zone and no additional charges are incurred.
Only in Cagayan de Oro
The Cagayan de Oro DEA, opened in mid 2013 during the term of former Customs Commissioner Rozzano Rufino Biazon, is run by a private company that is allowed to collect charges.
There is no other place in the country with a DEA outside the port area. Davao port previously had a similar setup but the area was closed due to a controversial tiff between the owner of the container yard on which the DEA sits, and the then Davao district collector.
The private sector clamor for the transfer of the Cagayan de Oro DEA to within MCT comes amid steady increase in the MCT throughput. For 2013 alone, the facility handled 224,539 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU), or 83% of its annual 270,000-TEU capacity.
Many shippers have been transferring to the MCT from the base port of Cagayan De Oro since 2010, according to Jose Mari Fernandez, terminal manager of Mindanao International Container Terminal Services, Inc, operator of the MCT. Fernandez was also a speaker the Mindanao Shipping Conference.
The MCT is used by Pilipinas Kao, Philippine Sinter, San Miguel Foods, Limketkai Manufacturing Corp. and many others. – Roumina Pablo
Image courtesy of lamnee / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
