According to World Maritime News, despite the challenging global economic situation, DP World——Dubai-based container port operator, achieved great financial performance in the first half of 2019.
During the period, DP World's profit had risen to $753 million from $593 million in the first half of 2018, an increase of 26.8 % and 22.2% year-on-year, according to the report.
The report also showed that with increased revenue from acquisitions and non-containerized shipping, DP World's revenue increased by 31.9% to $3.46 billion, up 10.8% year-on-year, while the figure was $2.62 billion in the same period of last year.
Ahmed Bin Sulayem, Chairman and Chief Executive of DP World Group said, “Our financial performance in the first half of the year meets our expectations.”
Bin Sulayem added, “Despite the uncertainty of the trade war and challenging regional geopolitics, our company was still able to achieve impressive performance in the first half of 2019.”
During this period, DP World continued to invest in its ports, logistics and shipping services. Investment in ports and terminals included two new assets in Chile, assets consolidation of Fraser Surrey Docks (Canada) and Australia, while its logistics and maritime investment included the acquisition of Pan-European——a logistics platform owned by P&O Ferries and of Topaz Energy and Marine, a maritime logistics operator.
DP World said that in the first half of this year, the capital expenditure of the existing portfolio was $636 million, and the capital expenditure guidelines for 2019 remained unchanged, upping to $1.4 billion, which would be invested in the United Arab Emirates and Posorja (Ecuador), Berbera (Somaliland), Sokhna (Egypt) and London (the UK).
“Looking forward to the future, we aim to integrate our new acquisitions, achieve synergy, and offer end-to-end intelligent solutions, all of which will improve the quality of our earnings and deliver returns,” Bin Sulayem noted.
“The short-term trade outlook remains uncertain as global trade disputes and regional geopolitics has led to the uncertainty in the container market. But our good financial performance in the first half of the year has enabled us to slightly improve our full-year performance ahead of market expectations.”