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APL’s Sartini urges Manila to improve ports

Expand ports to handle bigger ships and more business will flow through the Philippines. That was the message from the boss of containerline APL on visiting Manila to celebrate the line’s 100th anniversary of doing business in the Southeast Asian nation.

APL CEO Nicolas Sartini said the Philippines was missing out on mainline calls on the main east-west trades because it did not have the right infrastructure in place, unlike neighbour Indonesia which has recently got on the transpacific and Asia-Europe map thanks to significant port investments.

“If the country wants to continue to grow, be part of the global trade network, its ports should be able to handle the largest vessels,” Sartini said.

Sartini said APL, which currently has around 200,000 teu of Filipino business a year, was looking to grow volumes in the fast growing country by at least 10% a year.

“We want to grow the market and grow a little faster than the market,” Sartini said. “I think 10 to 15% growth every year would be a good target.”

Sam Chambers

Starting out with the Informa Group in 2000 in Hong Kong, Sam Chambers became editor of Maritime Asia magazine as well as East Asia Editor for the world’s oldest newspaper, Lloyd’s List. In 2005 he pursued a freelance career and wrote for a variety of titles including taking on the role of Asia Editor at Seatrade magazine and China correspondent for Supply Chain Asia. His work has also appeared in The Economist, The New York Times, The Sunday Times and The International Herald Tribune.

Comments

  1. They may need to expand the capacity f the port to take larger v/ls but, they need to redevelop Manila Container Terminal so that it’s not in the middle of Manila and it’s associated congestion. A total lack of sensible infrastructure development means that the place is totally unsuited to being a big modern port.

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