The closure of Pier 6 of the container terminal in Progreso, caused by a collapse, resulted in a 20% drop in heavy cargo transportation in the state, said Francisco Rivas Gamboa, president of the National Chamber of Motor Transportation Cargo in Yucatan.
In this regard, Dr. Gabriel Rodríguez Cedillo, an academic at the School of Economics in the Autonomous University of Yucatan, considered that the lack of a place in the Yucatecan port for the loading and unloading of foreign trade containers undoubtedly has an impact.
Perhaps, he declared, it would even lead to an increase in the final price of the products because it would make the transportation and logistics of the movement of the cargo that Yucatán receives or sends more expensive, he noted.
On June 7, a slab fracture occurred on the bearing surface of Pier 6 of the Yucatán Container Terminal of Progreso. The National Port System Administration (Asipona) reported that the repair would last from June 17 to December 17, 2024. The repair would cost $20 million.
Alejandro Guerrero Lozano, president of Index Yucatán, declared that the closure of Pier 6 causes economic damage and loss of competitiveness in this sector due to delays.
In addition, it increased the logistics cost to $250,000 a week because merchant ships go to the ports of Veracruz and Manzanillo instead of coming to Progreso.
Rivas Gamboa stated that cargo transportation has a real impact because now merchant ships go to other ports. They do not stay anchored because it costs them a lot of money. An additional expense exceeds their budgets, so they look for better options.
Therefore, he hopes they will soon repair and reactivate Pier 6 because the container demand continues to grow in Yucatán.
This situation reduces our work pace because the ships look for other docks to unload the containers, Rivas added. If ships wait twice as long to download, they must also be affected.
I hope the port committee tells us when the repairs will finish. Hopefully, it will be as quick as possible, the interviewee said.
Although he said he does not have accurate figures of the impact of the decrease in work, he estimated that cargo transportation would have dropped by 20%. This decrease in work is palpable due to the lack of containers to transport in the Peninsula and the Southeast.
TYT Newsroom
