The Philippine government has earmarked more than USD176.4 million for developing and rehabilitating major ports in the country.

The ports are in Davao City, Iloilo City and General Santos and Zamboanga in southern Mindanao Island.

Transportation and communications secretary Pantaleon Alvarez said the Davao development, costing USD100 million, involved extending the wharf, developing a container-handling area, a container freight station, a cold storage warehouse, computerised systems and vertical infrastructure, and rehabilitating existing facilities.

The port of Zamboanga, the major gateway to ASEAN countries, had reached capacity and required immediate development of passenger facilities and container-handling capacity, Mr Alvarez said.

The Iloilo port, ranked third for ship calls and fourth in cargo throughput at 419 million metric tonnes a year, will see major development. The USD50 million expansion of the port involves construction of a back-up area, adding vertical infrastructure, dredging the harbour, developing an access road and purchasing additional container-handling equipment.

Mr Alvarez said the ports would be an effective link to growth-driven markets in the Asia-Pacific region, and emerging growth areas in southern Mindanao, Brunei, Malaysia and Indonesia.