COSCO Shipping Ports (CSP), Cosco group's terminal operator, suffered a 43 per cent year on year 2016 net profit decline to US$247 million, drawn revenues of $556.4 million, up 1.1 per cent.
In a stock market filing, CSP blamed "the sluggish growth in the global economy and ports industry, as well as the decrease in China?s foreign trade" for its substandard performance.
It admitted that gross profit margin decreased by 0.4 percentage points to 35.8 per cent from 36.2 per cent in 2015 due to the increase in cost of sales. Profit from the terminals business fell 15 per cent to $242.9 million, due to the provision for impairment loss recognised for Qinhuangdao Port of $19.8 million, CSP said. It noted that excluding the provisions profit from the terminals business only fell eight per cent to $262.7 million.
For 2016, total throughput of the group?s container terminals rose 5.1 per cent to 95.1 million TEU.
Total equity throughput of the group?s container terminals increased by five per cent year on year to 29.5 million TEU.
Of this, 10 million TEU was were handled by CSP's subsidiaries, accounting for 34 per cent, while 19.4 million TEU was handled by its non-subsidiaries, accounting for 66 per cent.
Going forward, CSP said: "Effective implementation of our strategies will improve the quality of its terminal assets and management, which will support sustainable business development and improve overall profitability of the company".
The group will strives to meet its five-year goals of 50 per cent growth in total assets, 60 per cent growth on equity throughput and to double its net profit from continuing operations by 2021, CSP said.
