Major porters and foreign trade groups sought yesterday a dialog headed by the national government to tackle the effect of the Manila truck ban and the crafting of pragmatic solutions to the container port problem.

The Joint Foreign Chambers (JFC) and the Semiconductor and Electronics Industries of the Philippines, Inc. (SEIPI) said in a joint statement that "while we are supporting all efforts to better utilize the available capacities of the ports of Batangas and Subic, we know that there are no options but to use the ports of Manila more effectively"

Both groups submitted the statement to President Aquino. The truck ban is being pushed mainly to support an evolving government policy to redirect port traffic to either the Subic or Batangas ports but current capabilities of both ports have failed to draw in the projected demand.

At the moment, 3 million twenty­footer­equivalent units (TEUs) pass through the ports of Manila while Batangas and Subic have a combined capacity of only 800,000 TEUs.

The statement said the local and foreign business community remains deeply concerned about the economic damage that will be inflicted as a result of existing and expanded truck bans in and around the ports of Manila when the trade volume will pick up in May and June this year.

"We are aware that individual state­ holders discuss solutions with individual affected parties at the moment, but the fact remains that only an inclusive stakeholders' roundtable can assess the magnitude and the complexity of the issue and develop short, mid­term, and long term solutions for the Manila ports and the usage of the ports of Batangas and Subic," the statement said.

The statement suggests that the roundtable should be headed by the national government, preferably a senior Cabinet member, "to drive the search for solutions and see to it that those are implemented." "In our opinion that inclusive roundtable should take place now, before the trade volume picks up in a month or two, which will aggravate the logistics situation," the statement read.

The groups said based on discussions with port stake­ holders, a steady, well-managed flow of trucks with an effective appointment system (at the Manila ports) "will create less traffic disruption, will allow a more effective use of the port facilities and will maintain related cost at a reasonable level flow of imports and exports going."

The groups said some of the stakeholders that should be invited to the summit are port operators; shipping lines; truckers; local government units of Manila, Caloocan, and Paranaque; Department of Public Works and Highways; Department of Transportation and Communications; Metropolitan Manila Development Authority; National Housing Authority; Philippine Ports Authority, Philippine Economic Zone Authority; Bureau of Customs; and foreign and local chambers.

The European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines, a member of the JFC, has earlier proposed seven measures in relation to the current truck ban imposed in Manila including:

•  Elimination of all truck delivery bans completely and formulate a proper, coordinated, and efficiency 24­hour truck route regulation system;
• Removal of empty containers for the port area (35% of the truck traffic is carrying empties) by disallowing their storage in that area;
• Solving the traffic bottlenecks at Bonifacio Drive/ Anda Circle/ RA 10
• Extend the working hours of Customs to 24/7;
• Reduction of container dwell time to five days;
• Development a truck appointment system; and
•  Negotiating with the NLEX­ SLEX connector proponent the planning of a link into the harbor.

Source: Manila Bulletin, 08 April 2014

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