Batangas City—There is an enormous business potential for Batangas Port and all it needs to take off
on a grand scale is to increase operations
and get rid of all the misconceptions that hound one of the country’s biggest
and strategically located ports.
This was Asian Terminals Inc. Vice
President Bastiaan Hokke’s update on the Batangas Container
Terminal and International Cargo Port during the recent Batangas Province
Chamber of Commerce and Industry Forum
and Induction of new officers held recently at the Honda Cars Batangas, Diversion Road,
this city.
“Looking at the prospects of Batangas,
it is extremely important that you attract more investors here. For a foreigner, it is obvious that you lack a
number of large investors in this area, although you have enormous opportunities
for foreign investors, I think it can materialize faster and better for all of
you as members of this chamber of commerce if we see at least 50,000 containers
going to this port in the next few months, instead of what we have for the
moment of hundred per week maximum,” Hokke said in his speech.
According to Hokke, there’s a very strong drive from the Japanese businessworld
to maximize the potentials of the Batangas port.
“We have to do at least 50% of the capacity of this port. And the capacity
is 400,000 per year to make this successful. If we would be able to do 200,000 by the end
of this year,” Hokke added.
Hokke also clarified the misconceptions circulating among the shipping lines
that the Batangas port was prone to problems with trucking, hijacking of
containers, corrupt officials with the authorities, customs, and immigrations.
And these are some of the reasons why most shipping lines avoid the port.
“Those are all fairytales. I can
assure that after one year in Batangas, that has been created by the
stakeholders in manila that don’t want to lose their containers to Batangas,” Hokke
said.
Another misconceptions was that the charges in Batangas are much higher than
in Manila. This, according to Hokke was
another “lovely fairytale that was brought by the same people who don’t want to
lose their containers to Batangas.
“The charges in Batangas are exactly the same as what we charge in South
Harbor. Recently there had been a number
of tariff hikes in Manila. That’s about 17
percent increase. By mid May, you’d pay another 11 percent more for container going
to manila. We however, have not increased our rates, so we still have the price
level that is far more attractive than in Manila,” Hokke said.
Hokke also encouraged the members of the chamber of commerce to help make
the business potentials of the Batangas Container Port possible.
Smuggling has to stop, is now the battle cry of the new
business chamber president Faustino Caedo.
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The BPCCI Business Forum on the Batangas Container Port and National
Competitiveness also had the induction of the new officers.
Under the leadership of its new President Mr. Faustino Caedo and Immediate
Past President now Chairman Mr. Pedrito Kalaw, BPCCI held a Business Forum
after the installation of its new officers entitled SME Response to Trade
Liberalization.
In his speech, Caedo welcomed the chamber to the new campaign of maximizing all the possibilities of development among all its members. This new era of pushing the business sector to its full potential and success, he said.
"This year, we have a lot of things, monumental tasks to do. With the current economic situation, we have a lot of adjustments to do. We'll be working on a lot of challenges. We are fortunate enough to have a memorandum of agreement with the Bureau of Customs, for the Task Force of Batangas on anti-smuggling," Caedo said.
Reeling from the previous bouts with large scale and technical smuggling of pork, beef, and poultry products, which are the main products of the province, the BPCCI has been in the race to protect its members' products which have been suffering from the unfair prices of smuggled products.
The association's guests include, Filemon T. Berba, a member of the National
Competitiveness Council, Consultant of the DTI Center for Industrial Competitiveness,
President Emeritus of the Philippine Quality Award Foundation, President of the
Philippine Foundation for Science Technology and Former President of Globe
Telecom, Manila Water Co. and Integrated Microelectronics.
The
new Officers of the Batangas Province Chamber of Commerce
and Industry, Inc.
headed by its new president Faustino G. Caedo.
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PCCI Vice President for South Luzon Eduardo G. Nicolas III inducted the
officers into office while Regional Governor (IV) Teresita M. Leabres inducted
the new members and BPCCI Guest members for the year which includes La
Travesia/Cross Creek Development, Pioneer Laboratory, LIMA Park Hotel, Ace
Consultancy Firm and Manpower Inc., Society Glass, Philec/First Philippine
Electric Corp, Resorts World Manila, and Hotel 101 Manila. (Mei Magsino)
do you have the prescribed average/standard hauling rates per 20 and 40 footer container vans for batangas port, coming from calabarzon and ncr? you can email me at vic_gabrielle@yahoo.com, thank you very much!
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