Palace approves 90% cut in Batangas port fees

MANILA, Philippines - Malacañang has approved the reduction of port charges and other vessel-handling related fees at the Batangas Container Terminal of Asian Terminals Inc. (ATI) to encourage more foreign shipping lines to call at the port.

The Palace also agreed to grant incentives to listed International Container Terminal Services Inc. (ICTSI) of port and gaming mogul Enrique Razon for the share of Manila International Container Terminal (MICT) in de-clogging the Ports of Manila.

Juan Sta. Ana, general manager of the Philippine Ports Authority (PPA), said the measures approved by the Office of the President would lure more foreign shipping lines to the Port of Batangas and decongest the Ports of Manila.

Shipping lines using the Port of Batangas would now enjoy a 90-percent discount on port dues to $0.008 per gross revenue ton (GRT) from the existing fee of $0.081 while the dockage-at-berth fee was slashed by 90 percent to $0.004 per GRT per day from the current $0.039 per GRT for a period of six months.

For the next six months, Sta. Ana said the discount would be reduced to 50 percent. With the lower discount, the port dues would increase to $0.040 per GRT while the dockage-at-berth fees would go up to $0.020 per GRT per day.

“This is a big boost in our bid to increase utilization of the Batangas Port. It will offer incentives for foreign vessels at Batangas Container Terminal for period of one year,” Sta. Ana said.

He explained that the new directive has likewise changed the basis in the computation of the dockage-at-berth from per GRT per calendar day or fraction thereof to per GRT per block of 24 hours or fraction thereof.

The more vessel calls at Batangas, he said, the more alternative it would offer the shippers to utilize Batangas instead of coursing everything to the congested Ports of Manila.

There are at least six international carriers including MCC Transport Corp., NYK Shipping Lines, SITC Container Lines, American Presidents Lines, Regional Container Lines/Pacific International Lines, and CMA-CGM calling at Batangas port since June.

Sta. Ana added that Malacañang also agreed to reduce the port dues for the vessel chartered by ICTSI to bring out overstaying cargoes from the Port of Manila to Subic to $0.081 per GRT per call from $1 per call as well as the dockage-at-berth has to $0.039 per GRT per calendar day from $1 per call.

He explained that the purpose of the reduction is to incentivize ICTSI as it is the one shouldering the cost in moving out 6,000 overstaying containers at the Port of Manila to Subic

ICTSI is chartering a vessel with a capacity of about 1,300 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) with a GRT of 18,321 tons for at least 14 days to ferry empty containers and other overstaying containers from the Ports of Manila to Subic.

During its stay in the country, the vessel is expected to ship about 4,000-6,000 TEUs out of the Manila ports.

Currently, congestion at the Ports of Manila continues to decline with yard utilization almost down to the desired level of 80 percent from a high of 110 percent.

The Cabinet Cluster on Port Congestion also continues to find ways on how to further decongest the ports of Manila caused by the truck ban imposed by the city government of Manila last February.