The Bureau of Customs (BOC) has certified the Laguna Gateway Inland Container Terminal, the dry port container handling facility of International Container Terminal Services (ICTSI) in Calamba City, Laguna – a province in the Philippines, as an authorised Off-Dock Customs Facility (OCF).
The facility will now complete ongoing activities to make the dry port a fully compliant OCF, including the installation of a one-stop-shop housing BoC, Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) offices and reviving the multimodal service by rail.
With these projects in the pipeline, the 250,000 TEU annual capacity dry port expects clients to benefit from improvements in cargo movement, cost rationalisation, and the development plans of LGICT, which aim to attract new business.
LGICT will be able to serve and support trade movement of economic zones within a 30-kilometer radius and has allocated five hectares of yard space to customs, which can accommodate 5,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) at any one time.
The terminal covers an area of 21 hectares, 10 hectares of which are allotted to the container yard, offering laden container storage, empty depot, reefer container plugs, a dedicated loading and stripping area, and select areas for subleasing.
LGICT is equipped with container weighbridge and 'state-of-the-art' container-handling equipment, which on full build, will include rubber tired gantries.
Carmela Rodriguez, LGICT general manager, said: “The OCF status allows us to have the Bureau of Customs hold their functions and activities inside the LGICT dry port.
“As an OCF, LGICT officially becomes an extension of the seaport, and, in our case, an extension of the MICT. With this, we will be able to serve the requirements of importers, exporters, forwarders, third party logistics providers, or locators in the economic zones in the region.”
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Middle Image: (from left) LGICT officers with the dry port’s BoC OCF certificate: Manuel Mayo, Safety and Pollution Officer; Airene Calaluan, Finance Head; Annie Magsino, Administration and Human Resources Head; Carmela Rodriguez, General Manager; Michelle Mendoza, Accounting Officer; and Mike Santos, Sales and Marketing Manager
