Partners eyed for 5 ports

The government is set to find private sector partners for the development of five key provincial seaports around the country starting next year, the Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) said.

The development of the ports in Cagayan de Oro, Davao, General Santos, Iloilo and Zamboanga—as part of the administration’s public-private partnership (PPP) scheme—aims to boost trade and encourage economic growth in the Philippine countryside.

“Right now, we are in consultations for the packaging of these identified ports as PPPs,” PPA assistant general manager Raul Santos said. “If our studies show that the private sector is interested in these projects, then we will bid them out.”

The port in Davao will be bid out in early 2012. PPA General Manager Juan Sta. Ana said the agency was in talks with groups that planned to conduct a feasibility study for the port.

“We will see how the bidding for that port goes and if there’s a lot of interest, the other facilities will follow,” Sta. Ana told reporters.

Meanwhile, the PPA said it also wanted the construction of a bulk terminal in Manila Bay, designed for the transport of commodities such as grains and oil, to be done by a private investor to relieve the financial burden on the government.

“The desire of the agency is to have a bulk terminal that can handle commodities that we currently cannot accommodate,” Sta. Ana said. “It will be for both solid and liquid cargo.”

The agency said the bidding for the bulk terminal has been set for the first half of 2012. “We still do not know how much it will cost because it’s still being studied,” Sta. Ana said.

In case private sector interest in the proposed deals would be weak, Sta. Ana said the PPA would have to undertake the projects on its own.

Manila-based port operators have asked the government in the past to include seaport projects in the government’s list of PPPs.