Roberto Locsin, SBITC General Manager, said:  “The new equipment, along with the opening of a one stop shop, will allow us to continue to deliver superior customer experience for our customers from the quay to the gate including brokers, forwarders, and truckers and ultimately, the cargo owner.  These investments make sense at a time of renewed interest in Subic and the efforts of Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) and Subic Bureau of Customs (BOC), who promote the success of our importers and exporters in the region.”

The Government of the Philippines is pushing to divert some box traffic to Subic Bay and Batangas to relieve pressure on Manilla. Both have been designated official overflow ports and ICTSI is making investments to support this. “Terminal productivity and efficiencies will continue to improve as SBITC makes key investments in equipment and technology.  This demonstrates the commitment ICTSI and SBITC have for customers of central and northern Luzon.  It is also part of our effort to persuade more customers to use Subic as it is logically the gateway for these regions” said Locsin.

The “one stop shop” referred to above is a partnership between the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA), Philippine Bureau of Customs (BOC) and SBITC to speed up the processing of import transactions. “Located inside the New Container Terminal 1 beside the SBITC administration office, the OSS houses the SBMA and BOC Subic agencies under one roof.  The setup has allowed the seamless flow of transactions as port users no longer have to go to different areas in Subic to process their documents” said ICTSI.