Cargo throughput handled by Philippine ports in the first quarter declined 30.02% to 31.181 million metric tons (mmt) from 44.559 mmt recorded in the same period last year.
Data from the Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) showed that of the total cargo volume handled by the ports it supervises, 51% or 15.827 mmt were foreign cargoes while 49% or 15.354 mmt were domestic shipments.
Foreign shipments in the first quarter fell 36.9% in volume to 15.827 mmt from 25.065 mmt in the same period last year.
Imports slipped 24.8% to 11.481 mmt from 15.277 mmt, while exports significantly dropped 55.6% to 4.346 mmt from 9.789 mmt last year.
Domestic cargoes declined 21.2% to 15.354 mmt from 19.493 mmt last year.
The decreases mirror the slip in the value of imports and exports reported by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) in the first quarter. Imports declined 4.1% to US$15.682 billion from $16.348 billion, while the value of exports dipped 0.2% from $14.277 billion in 2014 to $14.247 billion in same period of 2015, PSA said.
Manila International Container Terminal (MICT) handled the highest volume of international cargoes during the period with 5.063 mmt, 3% lower than the 5.219 mmt recorded last year.
Following MICT is Manila North Harbor, which handled 3.887 mmt of domestic cargoes. This is 3% higher than the 3.771 mmt serviced last year.
The port of Cagayan De Oro, which handled mixed cargoes, reported a 20.2% increase in volume to 1.276 mmt from 1.062 mmt last year.
Box throughput
Container traffic, on the other hand, rose slightly to 1.317 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs), 2.8% higher than the 1.281 million TEUs recorded in the first quarter of 2014.
Foreign boxes, which account for 60% of the total, reported an increment of 4.1% to 784,222 TEUS from 753,187 TEUs last year. Volume of boxed imports rose 6.6% to 401,015 TEUs from 376,132 TEUs last year.
Exports also improved slightly by 1.6% to 383,207 TEUs from 377,055 TEUs. Domestic container traffic also grew 0.1% to 532,801 TEUs from 527,587 TEUs.
Contributing the highest foreign box traffic was MICT with 494,031 TEUs, a 7.5% increase from 459,590 TEUs in 2014.
Manila South Harbor followed with 207,665 TEUs, 10.8% lower than the 232,820 TEUs handled in 2014.
On domestic container traffic, Manila North Harbor accounted for the highest volume with 268,867 TEUs. This is a 4.2% growth from 257,959 TEUs last year.
However, among all the ports, Batangas registered the biggest increase in volume during the period with 50,416 TEUs, 419% higher than the 9,713 TEUs in the first three months of 2014.
Ship calls increased 1.14% to 86,055 from 85,089 in 2014. Ship calls to Visayas accounted for the highest share with 35,969 or 42% of the total. Next were calls to Luzon with 31,398 or 36%, and Mindanao followed, accounting for 22% of calls or 18,688.
Domestic ship calls, which contributed 98% of the total, increased 1.5% to 83,950 from 82,679 last year. The number of foreign vessels, however, dropped 12.7% to 2,105 from 2,410.
Passenger traffic, meanwhile, declined 6% to 11.899 million passengers from 12.648 million last year. – Roumina Pablo
