The Philippine Bureau of Customs (BOC) has certified the Laguna Gateway Inland Container Terminal, Inc. (LGICT), the dry port container-handling facility of International Container Terminal Services, Inc. (ICTSI) in Calamba City, Laguna, as an authorized Off-Dock Customs Facility (OCF).
The OCF certification enables LGICT to offer faster and seamless services to businesses and industries in Southern Luzon, specifically to locators in economic zones, using ICTSI’s Manila International Container Terminal (MICT) as its trading gateway, the port operator said in a statement.
The facility will fully open in April.
“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,” LGICT general manager Carmela Rodriguez said.
LGICT has ongoing activities that will make the dry port a fully compliant OCF, including installing a one-stop shop housing BOC and Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) offices. Soon, too, it will be reviving a multimodal service via rail.
LGICT has allocated five hectares of yard space as customs area, which can accommodate 5,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) at any one time.
With these projects in the pipeline, ICTSI said LGICT clients would benefit from the efficient cargo movement between points (discharging/loading ports and the last mile between LGICT and the manufacturers and vice versa), cost rationalization, and the development plans of LGICT itself, which could bring in new businesses for clients and industry stakeholders.
The LGICT is a dry port/inland container depot with an annual capacity of 250,000 TEUs and located in Barangay San Cristobal, Calamba City, Laguna, situated near the economic zones in Laguna, Batangas, Quezon, and the eastern front of Cavite. The facility will be able to serve and support trade movement of economic zones within a 30-kilometer radius.
With a terminal area of 21 hectares, 10 hectares of which are allotted to the container yard, the dry port is designed as a conduit that enhances the logistics supply chain activities of direct cargo owners and logistics service providers, while providing other support services for the benefit of end-users.
Currently, it offers laden container storage, an empty depot, reefer container plugs, a dedicated loading and stripping area, and select areas for subleasing. LGICT is equipped with a container weighbridge and state-of-the-art container-handling equipment, which on full build, will include rubber-tired gantries.
