PSA International 2009 profit falls 6.1pc on trade contraction

Singapore's global terminal operator PSA International profit fell 6.1 per cent to S$976 million (US$698 million) drawn from revenues of S$3.83 billion, which declined 2.7 per cent in 2009 as year-on-year container volumes fell 9.9 per cent to 56.9 million TEU, the Shipping Gazette informs.

Higher than expected profit was attributed to the company's "prudent control of capital expenditure and effective cost-cutting measures implemented since the end of 2008."

PSA's flagship Singapore terminal saw a 13.1 per cent decrease to 25.1 million TEU, but remained the world's busiest container port, said a Seatrade Asia report. Throughput at the group's 27 other port projects in 15 countries was down 7.1 per cent to 31.8 million TEU.

PSA said the smaller decline internationally reflected both its presence in countries such as China less affected by the global crisis and the contribution of container volumes from new port start-ups in Chennai and Vietnam.

PSA chief executive Eddie Teh pointed out that 2009 had been "a year of unprecedented hardship and challenges for the port and shipping industries," resulting in PSA suffering its first ever decline in containers handled.

The last two months of 2009 and first two of 2010 had shown "tentative signs of recovery," he added, "but the road ahead will be bumpy and uncertain, and all indications point towards a slow and drawn out recovery with different regions rebounding at different rates. The fear remains that a macro-economic storm will be inevitable to clear all the excess global production capacity that was created."

Source: Transport Weekly