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by Darwin G. Amojelar Reporter
The number of passengers
traveling by sea dropped last year owing to higher fare and the
preference of travelers to use budget airlines and roll-on roll-off
(ro-ro) vessels, the Philippine Ports Authority reported.
The PPA report showed that
passenger volume fell 14.34 percent to 41.67 million last year from
48.65 million in 2005.
The port authority attributed the
decline to higher fare, which drove travelers to prefer less
expensive modes of transportation or make use of the nautical
highway.
Cargo throughput also posted a
1.39-percent decline to 153.084 million metric tons from 155.23
million MT in 2005. Of the total, domestic cargo stood at 72.22
million MT, while foreign cargo, 80.86 million MT.
“This slowdown can be
attributed to the implementation of memorandum circular 02-2006, or
the RORO Transport System [RRTS] policy, which provided shippers
with a viable option to transport cargoes through the RRTS route,”
the agency said.
The PPA said among the ports
greatly affected are in South Harbor, Limay, Batangas, Calapan,
Legazpi, Dumaguete, Iloilo, Ormoc, Tacloban, Tagbilaran, Iligan,
Ozamiz and Zamboanga.
Container traffic, on the other
hand, was up by 1.75 percent to 3.77 million twenty-footer
equivalent units (TEUs) from 3.71 million TEUs in 2005.
The port authority said the
improvement was due to the active movement in foreign goods mostly
at the ports of South Harbor, Limay and Davao.
Foreign container traffic
increased by 4.71 percent to 2.1 million in 2006 from 2.01 million
in 2005, while domestic TEUs dropped by 1.76 percent.
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