Dubai-based port operator DP World posted on Thursday a 123 percent increase in net profits in the first half of 2008, which hit 287 million dollars, despite a global economic slowdown. The world's fourth-largest container port operator said its revenues grew by 32 percent to 1,598 million dollars, compared to the corresponding period last year.
"The business has performed very well in the first half of 2008 despite a deteriorating global financial and economic background, and these uncertainties remain," DP World chief executive officer Mohammed Sharaf said in a statement.
"In the last few months the industry has reported early indications of weakening growth in some markets," he said, but insisted that DP world has "continued to perform ahead of the market."
Sharaf also told reporters that there was a slowdown in the whole industry in the markets of South Asia and China, while the Middle East and Africa continue to see stronger growth. DP World operates 45 terminals, in addition to 13 new developments in the pipeline, across 29 countries. Its throughput of containers in the first half of 2008 increased 21 percent to 13.6 million TEU (twenty-foot equivalent container units), the statement said.
The Dubai government-controlled DP World became one of the world's top container port operators after its 6.9-billion-dollar acquisition of Britain's Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co two years ago. But the company had to relinquish the US part of that acquisition following fierce congressional opposition to the deal on security grounds despite the support of President George W. Bush.