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Dubai’s DPWorld Profit Up but Business Declines | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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DUBAI (AFP) – Dubai’s port operator DP World said on Wednesday that profit jumped 48 percent last year but warned that business was on the decline because of the global financial crisis.

Net profit surged to 621 million dollars in 2008 from 420 million dollars the previous year while revenue rose 20 percent to 3.28 billion dollars from 2.73 billion dollars, said DP World.

Chief executive officer Mohammed Sharaf said the company, one of the largest port operators in the world, “is reviewing some of the projects in the pipeline.”

“As business declines, the margins will decline… nobody knows where the bottom is,” he said.

DP World announced in January it was reviewing its expansion plans and freezing recuitment in face of a slowdown in the container terminal industry caused by the global financial crisis.

Consolidated throughput at its ports increased 15 percent in 2008 to 27.7 million TEU (20-foot equivalent container units) from 24 million TEU in 2007.

But Sharaf said that the volume of business was dropping.

“Volumes are just disappearing … it is just not there.”

The company operates 49 terminals worldwide, including two in Algeria which will join its portfolio in the first half of this year after it acquired their operations in November.