Local public-listed river-port operator Phnom Penh Autonomous Port (PPAP) posted $17.925 million in revenue for the first six months of 2023, representing a 19.48 per cent drop from the $22.262 million registered for the same period last year.
This has been pinned on regional and worldwide economic uncertainty brought on by the protracted Ukraine conflict and its effects on global demand.
In a report filed to the Cambodia Securities Exchange (CSX) on July 17, the state-owned enterprise provided the following breakdown by revenue segment: “port operation” ($13.560M; down 17.18% year-on-year from $16.372M), “port authority” ($2.266M; up 9.69% from $2.066M), “other services” ($497,191; up 174.7% from $180,997) and “other incomes” ($1.601M; down 56.04% from $3.643M).
CSX market operations director Kim Sopha Nita believes that the slowdown in port operations is merely temporary, contending that it will not have a materially negative impact on PPAP’s overall operations. She expressed optimism for “better performance” in the coming quarters.
“I see it as a short-term decline in income only, therefore, investors should monitor the overall operation of the company as a whole, as we don’t see any issue. Furthermore, the company should also present its plans and expectations in the next quarter or for this year,” she told The Post on July 18.
In a January 10 CSX filing, PPAP reported that it handled 3,783 cargo vessels at its facilities in 2022, rocketing by 64.34 per cent from the 2,302 logged in 2021.
Oil, gas and cargo throughput ticked up by 5.16 per cent to 4.044 million tonnes, while container throughput jumped by 19.72 per cent to 417,696 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units), it added.
A TEU is an inexact unit of cargo capacity used in the shipping industry roughly equivalent to a container with internal dimensions measuring about 20 feet long, eight feet wide and 8.5 feet tall, or a volume roughly 38.5 cubic metres.
PPAP reported that over the course of last year, 109 passenger boats carrying 6,947 people docked at its facilities – compared to zero in 2021.
For the first 11 months of 2022, the river-port operator also posted revenues from business activities of more than $37 million, an increase of 22 per cent over the same period of the previous year.
Comparatively, PPAP reported net profits of $12.7 million in 2021, up 29 per cent over 2020, and container throughput of 348,898 TEUs, up nearly 20.0 per cent from 290,857 TEUs in 2020, which followed a 3.49 per cent rise from 2019.
