Cebu cargo volume up 6.4% in 2015

CEBU, Philippines - Cargo volume at the Cebu port rose 6.4 percent in 2015, even as the planned port expansion has not yet started.

Latest data obtained by The FREEMAN from Cebu Port Authority (CPA) showed that cargo volume at Cebu port reached 42.473 million metric tons last year from 34.904 million MT in 2014.

 Container traffic also grew 16.9 percent to 832,782 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) from 712,435 TEUs in 2014.

 Domestic containers accounted for more than half of the total cargo volume.

 On the other hand, ship calls also saw a 3.2 percent rise last year to 112,410 vessels from 108,938 in 2014.

 Passenger traffic also reached 18.207 million from 16.312 million.

New port is yet to be implemented

The proposed Cebu international container port is yet to be implemented.

 In an earlier interview, Emmanuel Rabacal, Infrastructure Development Committee chair of the Regional Development Council, said the funding for the port may come from a Korean source.

 In an RDC meeting in December last year, it was learned that the port's feasibility study, done by the Korean Export-Import Bank, identified Tayud, Consolacion as the port's most ideal site because of available area for future expansion and no conflicting planned development expected in the future.

 The international port is estimated to cost P9.135 billion.

 An official development assistance (ODA) was initially eyed to fund the project.

 Under an ODA funding scheme, the Philippine government is likely to shoulder P1.268 billion or 13.39 percent of the total project cost while the ODA source provides P7.12 billion or 86.61 percent of the total.

 If the plan for funding will push through, the CPA expects the construction to start in August this year and targets it to be completed by second quarter of 2019.

 But Rabacal said there really is no definite schedule yet as far as the construction is concerned.

 It can be recalled that Cebu Representative Raul del Mar had filed House Bill 2339, urging the Department of Transportation and Communications and the National Economic and Development Authority to prioritize the evaluation and approval of the project.

 A new port in Cebu is really needed due to factors such as the rapid urbanization in Metro Cebu; traffic congestion in roads leading to the existing port; rapid commercial development at adjacent areas of the existing port; rapid increase in volume of domestic and foreign cargoes; and the need for modern port with bigger berthing space and container yard capacity.

 The transfer of Cebu's international port container terminal has been planned to address the increasing number of port calls and volume of shipments which have already caused congestion at the Cebu base port.  (FREEMAN)