ICTSI plans new container freight station in Subic

MANILA, Philippines - International Container Terminal Services Inc. (ICTSI) of port and gaming mogul Enrique Razon Jr. is planning to put up a container freight station at the Subic Bay Freeport, the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) said.

SBMA chairman Roberto Garcia said ICTSI’s planned container freight station, a facility where goods are prepared for transport to its next destination, would help ease shipping at the Subic port.

“This way, there’ll be no more warehousing as the goods could be loaded directly into delivery trucks. That means there will be no downtime too,” Garcia said.

Garcia said ICTSI, operator of Subic’s New Container Terminal, has SBMA’s full support for the project.

He said the container freight station would be another innovation on top of other SBMA initiatives like one-stop-shop processing and an aggressive marketing program designed to further cement Subic’s stature as a competitive shipping port.

He said early this month, the freeport marked the unloading of the 100,000th cargo container for this year, which came from Kaohsiung, Taiwan.

“Last year we recorded just 77,000 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units). But having reached the 100,000th mark in November, we are well on our way to hit 120,000 TEUs this year,” Garcia said.

The SBMA chief added the China South International Barter Center, one of the biggest online sellers in the world, is also proposing to make Subic a transhipment hub for its Asian shipping operations.

SBMA is marketing Subic as an alternative port to Manila since it is the only port in Luzon with a one-stop shop for cargo processing.

Garcia said Subic now has seven shipping lines unloading and taking in cargo on a regular basis after President Aquino signed Executive Order 172 that designated Subic as an alternative port to Manila.