Philadelphia Port business up 10 percent

The company that manages and operates Philadelphia’s Packer Avenue Marine Terminal said Friday that there was a 10 percent increase in the amount of goods that went through the terminal in the last year.

Leo Holt, president of Holt Logistics, said the Port of Philadelphia is growing. With the deepening of the Delaware River, he said he believes the port’s best years are still to come.

“Packer Avenue provides the jumping-off point for many types of commodities from Pennsylvania, the Ohio River Valley, and other parts of the United States,” said Holt.

Holt said the goal is to increase the amount of container business that stops in Philadelphia, “The containers that are unloaded from ships and loaded to ships can carry everything from automobiles to finished goods to food products, shoes, electronics, pharmaceuticals,” he said. “So they really run the gamut of every consumer good as well as every other good that’s manufactured here or overseas and going to international trade.” Holt said the terminal’s growth has created more than 200 jobs at Packer. He said he expects that number will grow in the coming weeks.