International Container Terminal Services Inc., the biggest port operator, said on Tuesday net income rose 5 percent in the first nine months of the year, boosted by higher cargo volume traffic in most of its terminal in Asia, including Iraq.
The port operator owned by tycoon Enrique Razon Jr. said net income reached $150.8 million in the January-to-September period from $143.7 million in the same period last year.
ICTSI’s net profit in the third quarter jumnped 53 percent to $58.2 million from last year’s $38 million.
ICTSI’s revenues from port operations amounted to $390.3 million, up 15 percent from $339.5 million last year.
The company attributed the increase in earnings to the strong volume and revenue growth across all three of the company’s geographic segments—Asia, EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) and America.
ICTSI handled consolidated volume of 6,435,192 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) in the first nine months, 12 percent more than 5,768,248 TEUs in the same period in 2015.
The increase in volume was mainly due to new shipping lines and services, improvement in trade activities in most of the terminals in Asia and the continuing ramp-up at ICTSI Iraq.
ICTSI has earmarked $420 million in capital expenditure this year, of which $297.9 million was spent in the first nine months of the year.
The established budget is mainly allocated for the completion of the initial stage of the company’s new container terminals in Australia, Democratic Republic of Congo and Iraq, and the continuing development of the company’s projects in Honduras and Mexico.
In addition, ICTSI invested $50.1 million for the development of Sociedad Puerto Industrial Aguadulce S.A. (SPIA), its joint venture container terminal development project with PSA International Pte Ltd. (PSA) in Buenaventura, Colombia.
The company’s share for 2016 to complete the initial phase of the project is approximately $60 million.