The financial crisis forced global trade to slow sharply in the fourth quarter, creating one of the toughest operating environments ever in the shipping and terminals business, DP World said today. "We ended (the year) with some of the worst market conditions the container terminals industry has ever seen. There has been a sharp downturn in global conditions," said Yuvraj Narayan, the senior vice president of corporate strategy at DP World, the world's fourth largest ports operator, in a conference call today.
Despite a poor fourth quarter DP World said its annual container handling traffic at its 26 consolidated terminals ? or terminals in which it has a controlling stake in ? still grew 15 per cent last year, to 27.7 million containers. However, it said excluding the contribution from new terminals which joined the portfolio during 2008, DP World's volume growth was six per cent. By contrast, the global terminals industry grew 12 per cent in 2007. This year, container shipments are expected to grow even slower, at just 2.9 per cent, according to Drewry Shipping Consultants.
"Its no surprise but rather an appropriate and unsurprising reflection on DP World's market and the deterioration of the global economy in the fourth quarter," Philipp Lotter, a senior vice president at Moody's, said of the results. "We are no where near out of the recession and we think this will affect the industry in general and DP World in particular this year." The company's focus on emerging markets helped it withstand the full force of the downturn, Mr Narayan said. DP World is one of the most geographically diverse ports companies, with 48 terminals and 13 new developments across 31 countries.
"Ahead of this backdrop, we delivered growth. This reflects a greater focus on emerging markets, which held better than the developed markets," he said. DP World reports its full-year financial results on March 25. igale@thenational.ae
