São Paulo – The Dubai-based ports operator DP World handled 54.99 TEU in 2013. Each TEU is equivalent to a 20-foot container. As per figures released this Wednesday (5th), the volume was down 1.9% from 2012. Last year, the company sold out a 75% stake it retained in a company in Hong Kong.
Despite the decline in gross cargo volume, DP World stated that there was a rebound starting in the second half. “Economic headwinds combined with limited spare capacity across our portfolio constrained our ability to grow volumes further in 2013,” said DP World chairman Mohammed Sharaf in a press release.
The company expects better results in 2014 and a return to a more “normalized” growth rate, as a consequence of increase cargo capacity, and the recovery of global trade.
The growth seen in the second half of 2013 was driven by performance in the United Arab Emirates and Australia. In Dubai alone, the company handled 13.6 million TEU last year, an all-time high and up 2.7% from 2012. The increase has been ascribed to expansion at Jebel Ali’s Terminal 2.
In the area comprising the Americas and Australia, the company handled 6.994 million TEU in 2013, up 1.3% from 2012. Throughput in Asia and the Indian subcontinent was down 2.4%, as well as in Europe, the Middle East and Africa combined.
DP World is expecting to handle 4 million TEU this year at Terminal 3 in Jebel Ali, 1.6 million TEU at London Gateway, in the United Kingdom, and 1 million TEU at the Embraport terminal, in the Port of Santos, Brazil. Both the British and the Brazilian units entered into operation in the second half of 2013.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
