Calls for the implementation of a container monitoring project designed during the previous administration have been aired to ease port congestion, and check rising prices and smuggling activities.
Eugenio Ynion Jr., president and Chief Executive Officer of Shiptek Solutions made the call in a radio interview, saying that rising prices and reports of smuggling activities have caught the public's attention, with the supply chain disruptions impacting core inflation and hurting where it hurts the most — the wallet.
"Port congestion is negatively disrupting the supply chain," Eugenio Ynion Jr. said. "The delays in the release of shipment in the ports result in additional demurrage charges, peak season surcharges, and port congestion surcharges. The importers will pass on all these to consumers."
He said it would be difficult to quantify the direct impact of port congestion costs passed on to consumers because of various surcharges.
A regular freight rate of $500, he said, could reach up to $10,000 if the shipment is not released on time.
He said delays add to importers' burden of slow turnover of their capital from their imports.
Solution to congested ports
Long delays and queues, according to Ynion, result in port congestion and are related to the high cost of goods and delayed delivery to consumers.
A solution to this dire situation in the ports, he said, is the implementation of the Trusted Operator Program Container Registry and Monitoring System or TOP-CRMS and Empty Container Storage Shared Service Facility which were signed during the tenure of former Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade and the Philippine Ports Authority.
The container registry and monitoring system will enhance competitiveness and allow for a cost-saving mechanism that stakeholders could use in the logistics space, he said.
For truckers and importers, the container monitoring project would offer relief. For one, it would eliminate long hours of queueing in the ports waiting for their cargo as they will have real-time information on cargo status.
This can declog streets leading to entry points in ports across the country as is currently happening when you see long lines of trucks waiting for the release of containers (cargoes). Truckers will go in when they need to and move out when they have to.
More importantly, the GPS device in containers could be tagged in "tagging centers" outside of the ports instead of unloading the cargo for more efficiency.
He said this eliminates the concern raised by the Association of International Shipping Lines Inc. that the tagging process could delay the release of cargoes, an issue some insiders described as "sour graping" for losing the bid.
Public consultation underway
The joint venture of NextIX Inc. and Shiptek Solutions Corp. emerged as the lone bidder of the TOP-CRMS bid, a project that will monitor the movement of import containers. The joint venture put in a bid of P877.6 million during the opening of bids on 22 March 2022.
PPA general manager, Atty. Jay Daniel Santiago, said a public consultation is underway next year to hear the stakeholders' concerns amid their opposition to the said project.
"The public consultation was originally scheduled on 20 December 2022, but to give stakeholders time to explain their contentions, it was moved to 4 January 2023 because, before the public consultation, the steering committee was required to conduct specific strategic focus group discussions to stakeholders," Santiago said.
He added that he required the consultation prompted by concerns of truckers, shipping lines, importers, and brokers vary.
"So instead of them airing concerns separately, they will be given a chance to state their sides. The consultation will be open to online or face-to-face media for them to observe. Then it will be followed by a press conference to be participated by those groups who joined the public consultation and the service provider," he said.
NextIX Inc. and Shiptek Solutions Corp. initiated the public consultation as operating guidelines still needed to be implemented. Therefore, all opposition and apprehension have no basis, according to Santiago.
While players in the logistics industry, particularly customs brokers and truckers, along with importers and foreign carriers, will benefit from reducing container deposit container management fees, the government is also well positioned to receive greater leverage against smuggling activities.
Brokers back TOP-CRMS, ECSSF
Meanwhile, the 14,000-strong Chamber of Customs Brokers Inc. is throwing its support to the TOP-CRMS and ECSSSF PPA as it would no longer require their members to pay for the container deposits to cover the loss and damages of containers.
"For the last two decades, we, practicing customs brokers, have seen and experienced the perennial problem in the requirement of the different international shipping lines of container deposits before the release of delivery orders/container release orders ranging from P10,000 to P20,000/TEU up to P100,000 for specialized containers such as flat rack and reefer container," CCBI President Adones Carmona said in his letter to the PPA General Manager.
He added that "the claim of refund after the return of the empty container and submission of the request for the return of the container deposit ranges from a month to a year, made life difficult for our members. Subsequent claims by the shipping lines of damages and unfair deductions are made to the deposits."
