ASIAN TERMINALS, Inc. (ATI) is actively looking for opportunities to expand overseas with its bigger capital expenditure (capex) for 2018.
ATI President Eusebio H. Tanco said in an interview on Tuesday aside from looking for government-owned ports for possible privatization, it is also seeking international acquisitions.
“We’re on the lookout for that. We’re always on the lookout for that,” he said.
Mr. Tanco added, “We’re gonna invest quite a bit this year. We have a lot of projects.”
At present, ATI is operating the Manila South Harbor, the Batangas Port, and the off-dock container yards in Sta. Mesa, Manila and Calamba City, Laguna.
The company said in May it is allocating P8 billion for capex this year, hoping to intensify its efforts for the Manila South Harbor and Batangas Port.
“Aligned with the government’s Build, Build, Build program, ATI is spending a minimum of P8 billion in capital investment this year to deliver better, faster and safer ports and logistics services to the country’s supply-chain,” the port operator said in a statement in May.
ATI is looking to have more cargo storage spaces in the Manila South Harbor and a multilevel car storage facility at the Batangas Port within the year.
Earlier this month, the company announced its Manila South Harbor recorded an all-time-high container volume for the first half of 2018, reaching more than 560,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of foreign shipments.
It expects to up annual capacity at the Manila South Harbor to more than 1.4 million TEUs next year when the company finishes all its expansion projects. — Denise A. Valdez
