Xiamen Port's profits slide

Xiamen International Port has seen full year profits slide 43% due to the harsh trading conditions and stiff competition.

The Hong Kong-listed port group reported net income for last year of CNY271m ($40m) versus the CNY474.2m seen in 2008.

Revenues were a shade over CNY2bn, 40% or CNY1.3bn, down on the CNY3.4bn in revenue the company had in 2008.

However, the company did see costs ease falling from CNY2.8bn in 2008 to CNY1.6bn last year, a decline of almost 42%.

Throughput at Xiamen’s 13 container berths fell 6.2% to just over 3m-teu, with volumes at Haitian, Hairun and Berth No1 at Dongdu down 7.9%.

The 51%-owned Xiamen Haicang International Container Terminals (XHICT) and Xiamen International Container Terminals (XICT) fell under 2%.

However, international and domestic transshipment volumes increased 27% and 134% year-on-year to 562,800-teu and 152,796-teu respectively

In contrast to containers Xiamen’s bulk cargo volume improved 9.6% to 5.3mt. At XICT and XHICT, volume surged 272.9%, thanks to rising steel imports.

Revenue at its container handling and storage division was down 15% to CNY630m, while bulk cargo operations saw revenue fall 14.2% to CNY122m.

(Source: Trade Winds)