No prepandemic level for maritime trade till 2023, says PPA

THE Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) forecasts that through 2023, the volume of maritime trade and travel in the country will not return to the pre-pandemic levels, even with the reopening of the economy and the lifting of certain travel restrictions.

Jay Daniel Santiago, the port regulator’s chief, said his group forecasts “conservatively optimistic” growth rates for cargo and passenger volumes from 2021 to 2023, as the effects of the pandemic are expected to drag on in the next three years.

For cargo, he said the port authority expects volumes to increase to 246.70 million metric tonnes (MMT) in 2021, to 249.17 MMT the following year, and 256.29 MMT by 2023.

This is still about 4 percent lower than the pre-pandemic cargo volume of 266.42 in 2019, but is 11 percent higher than the 2020 cargo volume of 20.43 MMT.

Santiago noted that the vaccination and the easing of travel restrictions will help drive cargo volume recovery in the next three years.

“The main driver of cargo volume is consumption. The moment consumption increases, cargo volume will also increase. In the meantime, we have yet to see the easing up of movement. We are very conservative but we are optimistic on the trend of cargo traffic,” he said.

For passenger traffic, the port authority expects an almost flattish increase in sea travel through 2023.

From 24.79 million passengers in 2020, the port regulator expects a very minimal increase to 25.84 million passengers this year, 26.10 million by next year, and 26.79 million in 2023.

Passenger volumes last year dropped drastically by 70 percent from the 83.72-million passenger volume in 2019.

“The authority doubts that volume will drastically pick up immediately even with the new IATF directive for movement,” Santiago said, referring to the Inter-agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases.