MANILA: Public auctions have become an integral source of non-traditional revenue for the Manila International Container Port (MICP), which struggled in 2015 to meet its revenue targets.
MICP, the biggest collection district of the Bureau of Customs (BOC), booked close to P500 million ($10.59 million) this year, as shown by a year-end report from the port’s Auction and Cargo Disposal Division (ACDD).
The report, released before the holiday break, showed it generated P467.42 ($9.906 million) million.
The amount was booked over 14 public auctions encompassing 1,179 containers, said Gerardo Macatangay, chief of MICP-ACDD.
Glutinous and white rice topped the list of disposed of goods, with 650 containers. This was followed by illegally imported sugar, plywoods, motor vehicles, and heavy equipment, 124 containers of which went on public sale.
The rice shipments were consigned to Silent Royalty Marketing, Starcraft International Trading, Greyvoid Corporation, and Intercontinental Grains. The consignees for the sugar were Real Top Enterprises, Global Classe Marketing, and Blue Chelsea.
While the 2015 figure was lower than the P580.22 million ($12.29 million) that MICP gained from public auctions in 2014, Macatangay pointed out that, when combined, the amounts mean that MICP has broken the billion mark with a total collection of P1.05 billion ($22.25 million).
For the past two years, he added, the BOC-MICP was “the most active in terms of public auction sales” and had the “highest number of containers disposed.”
The MICP has been actively trying to narrow the widening gap in its collections through non-traditional measures. It has routinely fell short on its monthly and annual revenue targets.
As of December 17, MICP was short by P12.56 billion ($266.1 million), with a total collection of P101.67 billion ($2.154 billion) against its target of P114.23 billion ($2.420 billion) for the 12-month period.
