Manila: International Container Terminal Services Inc (ICTSI) is reallocating $65m of this year's capital expenditures for the expansion of its facilities in Manila and Laguna in an urgent bid to help decongest port operations in the Philippine capital.
A total of $35m will be spent on Manila International Container Terminal (MICT) and $30m on the firm’s inland container depot in Laguna.
ICTSI will invest in rubber-tired gantries for both facilities while extra space will be developed at MICT.
The two projects would add more than 20% of the existing static yard capacity without changing traffic patterns, ICTSI maintained.
Meanwhile, Christian Gonzalez, vice president and Asia Region Head of the International Container Terminal Services Inc (CTSI), and general manager of Manila International Container Terminal (MICT), stressed yesterday that plans to divert traffic away from Manila to ports such as Batangas and Subic is a short term solution to the country’s congestion issues.
“People are saying we could go Subic or Batangas. This is not a solution. We need to find a long term solution to make ports viable. And the growth will be coming from Greater Manila, including Cavite which takes up 70% of the demand of imports,” Gonzalez said in a briefing for the Cabinet Cluster on Port Congestion at the ICTSI office.
“We have a very poor road network coming in and out (of the Port of Manila). You have very narrow access to the north, and a busy access to the south. We’re very lucky at the MICT because we have 4 kilometers of controlled roads which allow us to mitigate any queuing that was going on during the truck ban,” Gonzalez said. [08/10/14]
