KUWAIT CITY, 10 November 2004 — Kuwait-based United Arab Shipping Company (UASC) announced yesterday net profits of $79 million in the first nine months of this year, almost double that achieved in the same period of last year.
UASC Chief Executive Officer Abdullah Al-Mady said the company posted $79 million on Sept. 30 compared to $40 million in the corresponding period of 2003, marking a rise of 97.5 percent.
The company expects to boast a record annual profit in excess of $100 million at the end of this year, Mady said in a statement.
UASC, the largest joint Arab shipping venture, handled 818,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs), or standard containers, in the first nine months of 2004 compared to 700,000 TEUs in the first nine months of last year. Mady said demand for the company’s services had far exceeded its capacity and UASC decided to build eight high-speed container ships with a capacity of 6,000 to 7,000 TEUs each.
UASC has contracted a leading German ship design consultant for technical services and has invited tenders from a number of European and Far East shipyards to construct the vessels. The expected cost was not revealed. With a fleet of 55 vessels and an oil tanker, UASC was set up in 1976 by Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and has a paid-up capital of $991.2 million.
