DTI seeks adoption of freight transport standards

The guidelines of the standards have been presented to fleet operators and freight forwarders in Subic.

The Department of Trade and Industry’s (DTI) Competitiveness Bureau (CB) is pushing for the adoption of new freight transport standards to improve the logistics services sector.

The trade agency said the Philippine National Standard on Road Freight Transport (PNS 2135:2018) currently being oriented to stakeholders is targeted to fleet operators and hauling companies.

DTI-CB director Lilian Salonga said the department has been implementing programs to spread the content of the new standards, aimed at helping develop local industries and “learn and implement the best global practices and standards as a way to help improve the competitiveness of the country’s logistics services sector.”

The DTI said the guidelines of the standards have been presented to fleet operators and freight forwarders in Subic, Zambales, which houses the Port of Subic at the Subic Bay Freeport Zone, one of the country’s key ports.

The standards, which indicate measures to enhance road freight transport operations, are anchored on safety, reliability, cost-efficiency and environmental sustainability.

The standards were approved in December 2018 via the recommendation of a technical committee chaired by the CB and the DTI Bureau of Philippine Standards.

It is also one of the 10 deliverables of the Philippine logistics services sector which underscores the government and the private sector’s parts to ensure the competitiveness of the sector.

The standards also come as developments under the government’s infrastructure program to push the logistics sector to catch up with its own growth.

A 2017 Logistics Efficiency Indicator project by DTI and World Bank, which links low logistics performance to high logistics cost, noted that logistics cost-per-sales in the country stands at 27.16 percent, higher than its neighbors Vietnam (16.3 percent) and Indonesia (11.11 percent).