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CARGO
that went through ports owned by the Philippine Ports
Authority (PPA) showed a significant drop during the
first four months of the year, suggesting trade has
weakened.
Data
released by the authority showed that for the four-month
period ending April, there was a drop of about 9 percent
in the volume of cargo handled in the more than 100
ports of the PPA from a year earlier.
For the
period, 46 million metric tons of cargoes were handled
from 50.35 million metric tons last year.
The PPA
said the volume excludes cargo handled by the Mindanao
Container Terminal in Misamis Oriental, a facility now
placed under Phividec Industrial Authority.
In
general, however, there was sluggish movement in the
volume of cargo handled through almost every bigger port
of the authority.
The
report noted declines in the Manila South Harbor, in the
ports in Batangas and the Pasig terminal.
“At the
ports of PMO [Ports Management Office] Nasipit, shipment
of flour, bottled cargoes, refined petroleum, fruits and
vegetables and crude palm oil decreased. Further,
general cargoes, coco products, fertilizer and petroleum
products in private ports of PMO Davao also declined,”
the PPA said in the report.
In
foreign trade, on the other hand, export and import
cargoes declined 14 percent and 10 percent,
respectively. The PPA said that even the “sharp rise” in
cargoes handled at the Manila International Container
Terminal (MICT), PMOs San Fernando, Legazpi and Tacloban
have failed to counter the lower volume in ports in
Manila North Harbor, Manila South Harbor, Batangas,
Dumaguete, Ormoc, Pulupandan, Tagbilaran, Nasipit,
Surigao and General Santos.
“Volume
of imported wheat, cement, crude mineral, mineral fuel,
iron and steel handled at the [Manila] Harbour Centre
terminal decreased by 19.19 percent,” the PPA said.
A slow
demand for nickel ore in the foreign market contributed
to the drop of export cargoes in the ports of Nasipit
and Surigao, while export of fish products, coco oil and
produce of fruit manufacturer Dole Philippines all
accounted for the 24-percent drop in foreign cargoes
handled in General Santos, the PPA said.
In
terms of containerized cargo, PPA data show that boxed
goods recorded a 5-percent rise despite a 3-percent
decrease in domestic volume.
Foreign
cargo, in general, suffered a decline, though goods
transported via containers increased by close to 11
percent largely from imported raw materials handled by
MICT, including fruits, vegetables and lumber for export
at the Cagayan de Oro port, and the sustained volume of
ukay-ukay goods, or secondhand clothes and accessories,
in the Davao port.
On the
other hand, passenger traffic rose by 4 percent, or
about 600,000.
Figures
show there were 14.56 million passengers during the
four-month period, up from 13.97 million a year earlier.
Most of these were domestic passengers, as only the port
of Zamboanga handles foreign passengers.
Ship
calls, meanwhile, also rose by 4 percent to 103,787
vessels from 99,561 in the same period last year. |
