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International Container Terminal Services Inc. on Tuesday announced
that its subsidiary will take over the operation of the New
Container Terminal-1 at the Subic Bay Freeport Zone.
In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock
Exchange, the port operator said the Subic Bay International
Container Terminal Corp. (SBITC) will be taking over the operation
of the port “after fulfilling all conditions set out by the Subic
Bay Metropolitan Authority [SBMA].”
SBITC is set to service its first vessel
on April 2.
ICTSI, which holds 83.33-percent stake in
SBITC, said it has been informed by SBMA that no other company
had challenged the subsidiary’s bid contract for the operation and
management of NCT-1.
Earlier, SBITC said it will spend some
P473 million to meet NCT-1’s capacity of 250,000 TEUs (twenty foot
equivalent unit) per annum. It said the initial investment would be
used to purchase four rubber tired gantry (RTG) cranes, 22 prime
movers, five forklifts, three yard vehicles and three company
vehicles, in addition to two existing quay cranes owned by SBMA.
Besides port equipment, ICTSI said SBITC will
construct an administration office, motorpool/engineering office,
truck holding area, refueling station, and field office.
The subsidiary will also install software and
hardware for an information technology system that will be
compatible with SBMA’s software and hardware.
Last year, ICTSI posted a net income of P2.79
billion, increasing 52 percent from P1.84 billion
in 2006.
The company revenue, on the other hand, went up
by 27 percent to P15 billion from P11.85 billion due largely to the
revenues from new port operations in Ecuador, China, Syria, Georgia
and Davao, Philippines and strong organic growth at the company’s
operations in Brazil, Madagascar, Poland and Manila.
-- Darwin G. Amojelar
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