KARACHI, Oct 22: The Karachi Port Trust earned Rs8,423 million in total income for the fiscal year 2002-03, which represented an increase of 7.7 per cent over its budgeted income of Rs7,775 million or 1.5 per cent more than Rs8,293 million of its total income earned last year.

Releasing the official figures, a KPT spokesman said the Karachi Port Trust was one of the few organizations in the public sector which has remained financially self-sustained and healthy without any financial grant or loan from the government or the banking sector. “It has met all its development and non-development expenditures from its own resources.”

Expenditure of the port rose by one percentage point to Rs4,307 from Rs4,267 in 2001-02, so the KPT was left with Rs4,116 million in surplus, up two per cent from surplus of Rs4,026 last year.

Barring a fall in income generated from ship movement and services, all other sources of the KPT’s income registered a sizable rise. The figures, which had been recently firmed up and finalized, disclose that income earned through investment has recorded a fabulous increase of Rs211 million at Rs3,321 million from Rs3,110 million a year ago. As the government procedures do not allow the Trust to invest in commercial organization, therefore, all its investments were made in government instruments.

Sources said that three major factors resulted in fall of income earned on account of ship movement. The port during the second half of the fiscal year 2002-03 reduced its wet charges that directly reduced the income. Another reason for decline in income under the head ‘ship movement’ was the exchange rate. For the services the port charges foreign vessels in US dollar. However, after the 9/11 incident the rupee became stronger against the dollar, resulting in lesser income.

As the KPT has started to handle larger vessels having bigger

KPT income rises to Rs8.423bn cargo haulage capacity the number of vessels reporting at the Karachi Port also declined, which directly affects its income earned from shipment movement.

During the outgoing fiscal year, total cargo (dry and liquid bulk) handled by the port stood at 25.9 million tons or 3 per cent less than previous year when it handled 26.6 million tons. A fall of 800,000 tons in cargo handing was owing to lesser import of liquid bulk cargo (POL, palm and diesel oil) that declined to 11.4 million tons from 12.6 million tons last year. However, the number of containers handled during the period under review rose to 738,610 from 715,900 a year ago.

The fall in liquid bulk cargo, particularly in POL imports primarily indicates the economic performance of the country, which somewhat remained sluggish during 2002-03.

However, income from cargo handling slightly increased at Rs1873m as against Rs1847 million last year. Similarly, income from cargo storage improved to Rs485m from Rs420m of the previous year. Income from the property management also stood higher at Rs581 as compared to Rs468 million a year ago.