Container shipping drops by 50 percent at Benoa port
Benoa port saw a decrease in customers using its container services in 2012 of almost 50 percent compared with the previous year, The Jakarta Post reports.
About 17,000 twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU) containers passed through Benoa harbor in 2012, far below the 26,000 TEU containers recorded in 2011.
“We have only reached around 70 percent of our annual target. We have had this kind of decrease over the past two years,” general manager of Pelindo III Benoa, Iwan Sabatini, told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.
In 2010, the container transport service at Benoa recorded 33,000 TEU containers. Iwan believes that the unfavorable situation has been partly caused by the reduction in trade transactions between Bali and other regions and countries due to the global financial crisis.
As previously reported, both Bali’s and national foreign trade in 2012 experienced a decrease.
The drastic slump in container services at Benoa port, Iwan added, was also due to the government’s fuel policy implemented in February last year, in which diesel fuel used by the shipping companies is no longer subsidized. Meanwhile, land container transport services are still enjoying subsidized fuel.
“Our service per trip may be Rp 500,000 [US$51.50] costlier than the land service, but that cost is compensated for as there’s no congestion on the ocean route, unlike land routes,” said Iwan.
“Regretfully, many customers still think that transporting containers via land is cheaper,” said Iwan. “They don’t understand, if their containers get stuck in traffic, their operational costs will bloat and they may experience losses if their products rot quickly,” he said.
Iwan cited that almost 80 percent of the container vehicles passing through Bali were managed by businessmen based in East Java.
“So, most of the revenue does not come to Balinese businessmen and society, while their traffic causes damaged roads and congestion. We have filed our complaints on this issue, but there’s no response from the government or the businessmen,” said Iwan.
Head of Bali Industry and Trade Agency Ni Wayan Kusumawati acknowledged that most container uploading and unloading for export and import products to and from Bali was done at Tanjung Perak port in Surabaya, East Java.
Kusumawati said that at present Benoa in Denpasar did not have a goods port status. “Customers have the choice of uploading and unloading goods at Tanjung Perak in Surabaya and then continuing their journey by sea. But apparently, most still prefer the land route,” she said.