The Manzanillo port authority reported that the demonstration and blockade of the port area by customs employees concluded during the early hours of Friday, May 16 .
“(…) we are working with the authorities and the Port Community to resume port operations at 6:00 a.m. We are requesting that we begin dispatching units at the scheduled time, continuing with the appointment schedule indicated by the terminals in order to reactivate port operations in an orderly manner,” according to the statement from the National Port System Administration (Asipona) Manzanillo .
Customs employees closed the port access points on the afternoon of May 14 due to alleged poor working conditions they have endured since the arrival (April 15) of Captain Rodolfo Torres Chávez as head of the Manzanillo customs office.
On May 12, customs workers, mostly civilians, carried out an initial nine-hour closure , but it ended after negotiations with authorities.
The latest statement from Asipona Manzanillo does not indicate whether the protesters reached an agreement with the authorities.
The Port of Manzanillo is the busiest container port in the Mexican Pacific coast. During the first four months of this year, it handled a total of 1,291,721 20-foot containers (TEUs) , a 1.5% increase compared to the same period last year, according to data from the port authority.
In terms of tax collection, the Manzanillo customs office is the second most active in the country , behind only the Nuevo Laredo customs office, Mexico’s most important border crossing with the United States.
Comment and follow us on X: @GrupoT21
