MANILA: Seven banks have heeded the call of the Bureau of Customs to extend operating hours and facilitate payment clearance for shipments to avoid port congestion, the agency said yesterday.
These banks are Deutsche Bank, Security Bank Corp., Asia United Bank Corp., Metropolitan Bank & Trust Co., BDO Unibank Inc., and East West Banking Corp.
“We are already seeing faster movement within our ports in terms of released shipments over the weekends which had been otherwise not possible without the extended clearing payment service,” Customs commissioner Alberto Lina said in a statement.
Select bank officials have not responded to queries by The STAR as of press time.
In January, Lina called on banks to work during weekends to allow the BOC to fast track the clearing of shipments and avoid a repeat of port congestion in 2014.
Customs payments pass through the Project Abstract Secure System (PASS), managed by the Philippine Clearing House Corp. (PCHC) under an agreement between the bureau and Bankers Association of the Philippines.
According to PCHC website, PASS provides “adequate security safeguards” on the collection of Customs revenues. Since Jan. 11, the system has been operating 24/7.
This, in turn, has resulted in low yard utilization rate of the country’s main ports, data showed.
As of yesterday morning, utilization rate at the Manila International Container Port, the country’s largest, was at 71 percent.
This was far from over 100 percent months after the Manila city government imposed an expanded truck ban in February 2014.
As a result, cargoes piled up in Manila ports as they were left undelivered to suppliers, causing prices to spike. In September, Manila lifted the ban.
For his part, Lina ordered shippers in January to remove all “overstaying” cargoes from ports by the end of last month to avoid congestion anew.
Overstaying means cargoes left without import entries or unpaid dues 30 days after arrival. As of yesterday, the Port of Manila said 65 percent of those shipments are already out.
Customs did not provide data for its other ports.
Customs, which traditionally accounts for a fifth of state revenues, collected P30.9 billion in January.
