A shipping line owner called on government to have a long-term solution to ensure the shipping and cargo gateways are free of obstructions.
Doris Magsaysay-Ho, whose family owns the Magsaysay Group of Companies, said while port operatorsInternational Container Terminal Services Inc. and Asian Terminals Inc. have invested heavily to modernize ports in Luzon for international operations, the government must do its part in ensuring these shipping and cargo gateways are free of obstructions.
“International ports have made significant investments and can contribute valuable revenue to the government,” said Magsaysay-Ho at the recent Anti-Red Tape Authority Logistics Forum 2022.
“However, it is important for the government to improve the vital performance of ports with ‘a whole-of-government approach’ working on solutions’ outside the port,” Magsaysay-Ho said.
She added: “The roads, that are the arteries to and from the port must be free and clear of illegal business fees charged by the LGUs(local government units).”
Clearing these roads of all sources of congestion, she said, would make movement of goods faster from ports by cargo trucks and to shippers.
Around 90 percent of all goods is transported via ships, she added.
She said the supply bottlenecks the country saw at the height of the COVID pandemic and surge in freight and land transport costs are serving as lessons on how to achieve better shipping and logistics operations.
“It is important for the government to acknowledge that shipping and logistics are ‘critical infrastructures’ needed for the country’s development and are not impediments,” she said.
“But the work we must do must be long-term policies and solutions, not short-term ones. The long-term solution will require an ‘all of government approach to infrastructure planning,” she said.
Magsaysay-Ho also noted that it is important to design the country’s shipping and logistics infrastructures around the needs importation, exports and inter-island trade.
