Cavite Gateway Terminal to Open by End of September

The Cavite Gateway Terminal (CGT) is near completion, and is expected to be ready by the end of September. According to the Department of Transportation (DoTr), the terminal is 99-percent complete already, although operator International Container Terminal Services, Inc. (ICTSI) noted that the formal inauguration hasn't been set yet.

"The project is completed, and we have successfully simulated the receipt and delivery of containers via barge and trucks. We are just confirming date of formal inauguration," the company said in a statement.

The CGT's original completion target date was actually on the third week of June, but it was delayed due to the three typhoons that plagued the country.

"Weather has not been very cooperative in the past few months," explained DOTr Communications Director Goddess Hope Libiran.

Cavite Barge Terminal

The CGT, which is also called Cavite Barge Terminal, is part of ICTSI's USD 380 million capital expenditure. It will be the first roll-on, roll-off barge facility in the Philippines that will serve cargo trans-shipments that come from Manila and to Cavite.

Reduced Traffic Congestion

"The CGT was designed to expand our port capacity, and reduce traffic congestion in Metro Manila by supporting an annual capacity of 115,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) translating to 140,000 fewer truck trips traveling on city roads per year,” the DoTr said.

"Businesses will now have an alternative way to move cargo to and from the Port of Manila and the economic zones of Cavite via container barges plying the Manila Bay," ICTSI's Chairman and President Enrique Razon, Jr. said. "This should significantly relieve Metro Manila road traffic of container trucks."

Razon, during ICTSI's annual stockholders' meeting, also said that the project is the first to be "developed, conceptualized, started, and completed under the Build, Build, Build Infrastructure Program" of President Rodrigo Roa Duterte.