Cosco Shipping Ports net profit up with 11% in H1 2020

Cosco Shipping ports posts $ 163 million profit since January

China state-owned Cosco Shipping Ports (CSP) has posted a net profit of US$163.4 million, a year-on-year increase of 10.5 per cent for the six months ending June 30 2020.

Revenue was down 12.6 per cent year on year at $452.7 million. Total throughput was 57.63 million TEU, a decline of 3.6 per cent.

CSP’s total throughput from Greater China terminals was 44.04 million TEU, down 4.3 per cent year on year (1H2019: 46.02 million TEU) and accounted for 77.0 of the group’s total.

CSP terminals see overseas volumes go down with 1.1% year-on-year

Overseas volumes through CSP terminals decreased by 1.1 per cent year on year to 13.60 million TEU (1H2019: 13.75 million TEU) and accounted for 23.6 per cent of the group’s total.

The company said overseas volumes were impacted by decrease in global economic demand due to the epidemic and liner companies reduced capacity.

Throughput of Piraeus Terminal decreased by 6.2 per cent to 2.41 million TEU (1H2019: 2.57 million TEU), while the volume of CSP Zeebrugge Terminal surged by 58.4 per cent to 292,531 TEU (1H2019: 184,724 TEU), which was mainly driven by improvement in shipping routes and increasing volume from ad-hoc shipping calls in January and February.

China’s import/export stats show strong recovery

The only growth terminals in China were in the Bohai Rim and the Southwest Coast regions. Total throughput of the Bohai Rim region increased by 4.9 per cent to 20.24 million TEU (1H2019: 19.30 million TEU) and accounted for 35.1 per cent of the group’s total.

Teminals in the Southwest Coast region saw total throughput increasing dramatically by 214.6 per cent year on year to 2.28 million TEU (1H2019: 724,795 TEU) and accounted for 3.9 per cent of the group’s total.

CSP said in a statement that the “Covid-19 epidemic has not been contained globally and global economy and trade activities have not yet recovered. Although uncertainties lie ahead,

China’s imports and exports statistics have shown signs of strong recovery”. It said the company will continue to actively implement a series of measures, such as lean operations, control cost and improve efficiency.

“Cosco Shipping Ports is well prepared to embrace the rising demand. The Group will keep a close eye on the declining valuation of global terminal resources and opportunities of acquisition to actively look for projects with high potential in Southeast Asia, Middle East and Africa.

“The Group aims to build hub ports, gateway ports and strategic terminals with controlling stakes to improve the company’s profit and enhance synergy.”