PORT operator International Container Terminal Services Inc. (ICTSI) sees April performance to be worse than March when it registered a 10 to 15 percent drop globally.
Enrique Razon, ICTSI chairman, in an interview on Bloomberg TV yesterday said hit hardest among its 31 terminals in 18 countries are those in Latin America namely Mexico, Brazil, Ecuado and Colombia while its ports in Africa and in Australia are doing okay.
“All terminals are operating. Overall, we’re probably down 10 to 15 percent in March. We expect April to be a lot worse because almost the entire world is in lockdown,” Razon said.
Back home, flagship Manila port is down and, since the enhanced community quarantine mid-March, has been experiencing congestion.
But Razon said Manila International Container Port has
seen some improvement the past days.
“We’re making a little bit of headway on a daily basis. We’re pushing very hard… trucks and goods are able move a lot freer. We’ve been pushing importers to open their warehouses, to take delivery
especially of goods that are required to feed the people… foodstuff,
medical equipment, medicines. We’re imposing very high penalties for containers left in the port, which is necessary. We cannot allow people to store containers inside ports during the lockdown,” Razon said.
Razon said from 4,000 containers entering and leaving the ports daily, withdrawals fell to 40 to 50 containers a day during the early stages of the congestion following the lockdown.
This has since improved to 1,000 to 2,000 containers at present.
ICSTI has been transferring unclaimed cargoes to other facilities around Luzon to ease the capacity of its yard.
“We’re doing whatever it takes but we will at the end of the day able to handle this,” said Razon as he appealed to
businesses to open their factories especially cold storage facilities and to take delivery of their shipments.
Razon said he agreed with the government’s decision to extend the lockdown.
“It’s definitely the right move,” he said adding that the main concern now should focus on how to feed the people.
“The concern of business is secondary at this point. The only thing that counts now is
defeating the virus and basically surviving it and reducing it, and as everybody has been saying, flatten the curve. That’s the only thing that counts,” he said.
He noted the importance of keeping the goods flowing even as the country tries to get the infection rate down.
“And then we’ll see about lifting (the quarantine).Lifting the lockdown at this environment is very tricky. There has to be a plan….it’s not from one day to the next. A lot of people are underestimating what this is really going to take,” Razon added.
