Container traffic at the Mindanao Container Terminal (MCT) declined in the first nine months of 2014, sliding 9.4% to 150,530 twenty-foot-equivalent units from 166,159.75 TEUs registered in the same period last year.
Ship calls also decreased 7.96% to 312 from 339 vessel calls.
For the entire 2013, MCT handled 217,843 TEUs, a record high since 2006 and representing 80.68% of its total annual capacity of 270,000 TEUs.
The Phividec Industrial Authority, the government agency that owns the land on which MCT stands, earlier said it was studying the expansion of MCT to prepare for an anticipated increase in volume at the Northern Mindanao shipping hub.
Port users of the terminal have been asking for the facility’s expansion due to the steady rise in volume. — Roumina Pablo
