P4-B port project seen spawning factories in Misamis Oriental

MANILA, Philippines  —Various manufacturing businesses and related industries are expected to sprout around the P4-billion Lagonglong Port in Misamis Oriental, which its developer Amadi MGT Terminals Inc. intends to complete by March 2025.

The port developer last Jan. 21 broke ground on its private commercial port project in Lagonglong town, which is expected to increase trade activities in Mindanao, enhance logistical capability in the region and generate new jobs.

In a statement on Tuesday, Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. said this “timely” port project will increase efficiency of transporting vital goods and provide storage facilities that will help maintain the quality of agricultural products and raw materials.

The Lagonglong Port, once completed, is expected to spur the development of factories, processing plants and other value-adding facilities upon its completion, Laurel said.

READ: DOTr mulls construction of more seaports

Amadi will earmark P1.4 billion for the first phase of the port project, which will have an annual throughput capacity of 3.3 million metric tons of bulk cargo.

According to the Department of Agriculture (DA), the port will also have storage facilities and modern equipment to handle international and domestic cargo, including perishable goods.

To cut costs

Tui Laurel estimates that the port project will reduce feed costs by at least 2.5 percent or as much as 5 percent, and the cost of fertilizers by 5 percent to 10 percent.

“I’ve seen that happen, and I’ve done it. In Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and other areas in the Western Pacific where we [working in the private sector] built ports,” he said. “We should build more ports like this. This is critical to the modernization of our country.”

The agriculture chief said they already requested Amadi to provide space for putting up cold storage, ice stands and silos for other agricultural products.

The DA previously unveiled plans to build cold storage facilities in the country to reduce postharvest losses and address oversupply of food items. For this year alone, the DA allotted P1 billion to construct four cold storage facilities, mainly at the Food Terminal Inc. (FTI) complex in Taguig City.

READ: P500-M Taguig cold storage eyed amid veggie glut

This includes the P500-million chiller warehouse dedicated to vegetables and other high-value crops which would rise on a 1.3-hectare section of the FTI. It would be equipped with a processing plant and trading area.

Developing the warehouse forms part of the DA’s plan to centralize all logistics management matters. INQ