State-run Philippine Ports Authority said Wednesday cargo volume increased 13 percent year-on-year in the first two months on strong imports.
Data from PPA showed total cargo volume reached 34.672 million metric tons in the January to February period, up from 30.645 MMT registered in the same period in 2015.
Domestic cargo throughput rose 7.7 percent, while foreign cargo volume climbed 18.1 percent from a year ago.
“The growth in cargo volume was observed mainly in the ports of Dapitan, Marquez, Nasipit and Limay enjoying the biggest growth at 129.78 percent, 95.51 percent, 93.57 percent and 63.79 percent, respectively,” PPA officer-in-charge Raul Santos said.
Containerized cargo volume went up by 5.2 percent to 958,628 twenty-foot equivalent units from 910,955 TEUs last year.
Domestic boxes increased 5.3 percent to 374,978 TEUs from 356,121 TEUs a year earlier while foreign boxes posted a 5.19-percent hike to 583,650 TEUs from 554,834 TEUs.
“As expected, Manila’s North Harbor port continues to rank first in terms of volume of domestic containerized cargo handled during the period with 172,694 TEUS,” Santos said.
“The Manila International Container Terminal, on the other hand, continues to handle the largest volume of foreign containerized cargo with 328,309 TEUs followed by South Harbor with 150,422 TEUs,” Santos said.
Moreover, private ports handled 20.16 MMT or 58.14 percent of the total cargo volume nationwide while government ports accounted for 14.51 MMT or 41.86 percent.
Passenger volume rose 11.6 percent in the two-month period to 10.20 million from a year earlier.
Shipcalls for the period went up by 14.3 percent, or from 59,690 in 2015 to 68,209 this year. Domestic and foreign shipcalls grew 14 percent and 26.3 percent, respectively.