DUBAI: Dubai’s port operator DP World announced yesterday a 48-percent growth in profits in 2008, despite declining business in the final quarter due to the global financial crisis.
Net profits surged 48 percent to $621 million last year, compared to $420 million in 2007, DP World said.
Mohammed Sharaf, CEO of DP World, gave no figures on the last three months of 2008, though he told reporters at a briefing that “the volume started softening (in the last quarter) and continues to soften.”
“As business declines, the margins will decline ... Nobody knows where is the bottom.”
DP World, one of the largest marine ports operators in the world, announced in January that it was reviewing expansion plans and freezing recruitment faced with a slowdown in the container terminal industry.
“The volume deceleration we saw in the last quarter of 2008 has continued into early 2009 and shows little sign of easing in the foreseeable future. “Falling utilization rates across container terminals globally mean the demand for new capacity in the short term is much diminished,” the company’s Chairman Sultan bin Sulayem said in a statement.