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Evergreen Line is moving to decongest its container inventory in the Philippines by deploying weekly sweeper vessels and adding a designated depot
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The initiatives aim to address the challenge of managing empty containers, and “underscore the company’s commitment to providing seamless and effective logistics solutions”
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Evergreen Line’s off-dock depot and Manila International Container Port are now accepting empty returns for allocated slots
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The Confederation of Truckers Association of the Philippines earlier complained of empty container return issues with Evergreen, calling for its members to refuse accepting the line’s import containers
Evergreen Line is moving to decongest its container inventory in the Philippines by deploying weekly sweeper vessels at the Manila International Container Terminal to collect and transport empty boxes, and adding a designated empty depot in Bulacan.
The initiatives aim to address the challenge of managing empty containers, and “underscore the company’s commitment to providing seamless and effective logistics solutions,” the Taiwan-based carrier said in a statement sent to PortCalls.
The statement comes after the Bureau of Customs on December 19 facilitated a meeting with representatives of Evergreen Line, Confederation of Truckers Association of the Philippines (CTAP), Association of International Shipping Lines, Alliance of Container Yard Operators of the Philippines, and Manila international terminal operators to address complaints of “extraordinary difficulty and delays” experienced by CTAP members in returning empty containers of Evergreen Line.
The meeting forestalled CTAP’s decision to refuse the handling of import containerized cargoes of Evergreen Line starting December 16.
READ: CTAP postpones decision to stop accepting Evergreen cargoes
In its latest advisory on December 23, CTAP said Evergreen Line’s off-dock depot and Manila International Container Port are now accepting empty returns for allocated slots.
As part of its initiatives, Evergreen Line added Brightpoint Logistics Corp.’s container yard in Bulacan to its designated container depot for empty returns, in addition to 12 other depots/terminals in and out of Metro Manila.
The depots’ “strategic locations serve as critical hubs for consolidating and processing empty containers thus enabling faster turnaround times and reducing the strain on its primary facilities,” Evergreen Line said.
“This proactive measure significantly reduces backlog and ensures that containers are swiftly redeployed to other demand areas,” it noted.
Moreover, the carrier said it continues to employ the empty loadout shipping agreement (ELSA) at Manila South Harbor.
An initiative that started in 2019 and joined by various shipping lines calling Manila South Harbor, ELSA is an agreement to share vessel resources and load out more empty containers out of Manila South Harbor in response to the then problem with empty containers and high utilization of Manila ports.
Evergreen Line noted that ELSA is a strategic collaboration between the terminal and carriers to load their excess empty containers onto the earliest available partner vessels, giving member carriers the platform they need to evacuate empties into shortage areas, and thereby freeing up terminal and yard space to ensure operational efficiencies are sustained.
Evergreen Line said its initiatives “demonstrate its commitment to innovation and its desire to meet the evolving needs of customers while minimizing congestion at its facilities.”
The carrier added that its efforts to expedite the evacuation of empty containers “not only improve its own operations but also contribute to the overall efficiency of terminal operations as well as logistics and shipping sectors in the Philippines. – Roumina Pablo
