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Saturday, October 04, 2003
NEDA-10 records shipping, import hikes for 1st half
By Rubelyn Yap
NORTHERN Mindanao showed positive output in terms of shipping activities in its ports at Cagayan de Oro, Iligan and Ozamis City in the second quarter of 2003.
Regional director Myra Balandra of the National Economic Development Authority (Neda) 10 said the output covered showed increase in shipcalls by 21.58 percent.
The volume of cargoes and number of passengers also went up 16.04 percent and 7.60 percent respectively.
She said their report stated that this year's shipcalls totaled 4,226 from only 3,476 of last year.
"The increase of shipcalls was largely due to the increasing number of domestic vessels handled in the ports of Ozamiz and Phividec," she said.
Balandra said the major ports handled a total of 3,074,899 metric tons during this year from 2,649,796 metric tons last year.
She said the substantial hike was due to increased importation of rice and fertilizer and the exportation of sugar and scrap metal, all through Cagayan de Oro City's Macabalan base port.
"Inbound domestic cargoes grew by 15 percent, outbound cargoes dropped by 1.56 percent because of the substantial decrease in the volume of bottled cargoes of Asia Brewery for the quarter," she said.
There is also an increase of 7.60 percent in passenger traffic with 1,485,759 disembarking and embarking passengers were recorded during this quarter an improvement from the 1,380,820 last year.
In terms of electrification in the region, a total of 401,834 households in Region 10 were powered by nine electric utilities.
This is a 3.16 percnt increase or 12,315 more households using electricity compared to the same quarter in 2002.
The powered households comprised 74.13 percent of the 542,075 households in the region.
In terms of energy consumption for the second quarter Region 10 posted a 10.55 percent increase or around 44,832,753 kwh as compared to the sales in the same period of last year.
Balandra said among the region's five provinces, only Lanao del Norte registered a decline in the energy sales by 3.10 percent.
"This was due to the reduced demand by the Maria Christina Chemical Industries (MCCI) which slowed down its operation and the mothballed National Steel Corporation (NCC)," she said.
On the other hand, Misamis Oriental increased its energy demand by almost 19 percent due to increased energy use by the Cagayan de Oro Power and Light Company (Cepalco) of which half is used by the province and a significant portion used by the Mindanao Silicon Metal Corp.
(October 4, 2003 issue)
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