‘Port congestion easing up’

MANILA, Philippines - The congestion at Manila’s ports has started to ease up amid the Christmas rush, Cabinet Secretary Rene Almendras said yesterday.

He said stakeholders have reported better positioning of empty shipping containers by trucking firms, new systems from the Association of International Shipping Lines (AISL) and the opening of a new empty container depot.

Almendras is set to convene a technical working group next week to draw up and issue guidelines on the dispatch and allocation of empty containers at the Manila International Container Terminal (MICT) of port giant International Container Terminal Services Inc. (ICTSI).

Almendras said stakeholders agreed during a recently concluded Manila Ports Forum held at the Diamond Hotel to improve cargo processing and port operations during the holiday season and over the long term.

For one, ICTSI has committed P1.6 billion for the development of six hectares of new yard space that could handle 6,500 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of empty containers at the MICT and another P1.4 billion to develop a 21-hectare inland container depot in Laguna.

“The new yard expansion at the MICT will significantly improve the situation in the Port of Manila. Shipping lines now have additional space to park their empty containers within the port. Operationally, this will be very efficient when shipping lines move out their empty containers outside of the country,” he said.

MICT general manager Mohamed Ghandar said operations at the new yard expansion of the MICT are in full swing to specifically accommodate the storage of empty containers.

Returning empty containers have been identified as a major cause of the backlog at the Manila ports that was caused by the Manila daytime truck ban. However, the empty container backlog persisted even after the lifting of the ban last September due to the peak holiday trade season.

The AISL said the group is doing its part to ease congestion at the Manila ports, including a project for an online system on the retrieval of empty containers.

The association is also set to implement a system to interconnect all stakeholders, including shipping lines, truckers and depots, directly involved in empty container returns.

Earlier, Transportation Secretary Joseph Emilio Abaya said operations at the ports of Manila have improved significantly due to the measures implemented by the government.