Singapore’s PSA volume up 14% to 65.12 m TEUs

Monday, 7 March 2011 00:01 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Reuters) - Singapore port operator, PSA International, said on Friday its 2010 net profit rose 21 percent helped by recovery in global economic recovery and container shipping industry, but its chairman highlighted concerns about the slowdown in China.

The company, controlled by Singapore state investor Temasek Holdings , earned S$1.18 billion ($930 million) in profit last year, up from S$976 million a year ago as its revenue climbed 6.3 percent to around S$4.1 billion.

“I continue to be bothered by the lingering economic problems in the developed countries and the unfolding of a slowdown in China,” Fock Siew Wah, Group Chairman, PSA International said in a statement.

The container shipping industry has rapidly recovered from the global downturn in 2008-09, which the IMF has named the “Great Trade Collapse”, that cost the sector an estimated $19.5 billion due to a severe slowdown in seaborne trade.

Demand growth for the container industry, a key indicator of world economic activity, was expected to slow to 7.7 percent from 14 percent last year, according to Alphaliner.

PSA International had said its container cargo volume rose by 14.4 percent in 2010 from a year earlier to 65.12 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of containers at its ports globally,

Out of that total 27.68 million TEUs were coming from its Singapore operation. PSA participates in 28 port projects around the world with an annual capacity to handle 111 million TEUs. ($1 = 1.269 Singapore Dollars)