ICTSI eyes more foreign port projects

ICTSI eyes more foreign port projects

MANILA (Reuter): Philippine port operator International
Container Terminal Services Inc (ICTSI) said yesterday it was
considering managing ports in Brazil and Indonesia.

ICTSI chairman Enrique Razon said the firm was studying
whether to bid for the management contract of two ports in Brazil
-- Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo -- and whether to join a private
group running a port in Jakarta.

"The bidding for the Rio de Janeiro port will be in July. For
the Jakarta port, we're not bidding for that. There's a group
that has launched that project and we're looking if we're going
to come in or not," Razon said.

He said ICTSI would want a majority stake in the Rio de
Janeiro port project but would settle for just a management
contract for the Jakarta port.

If ICTSI proceeded with the port projects, it would be several
years before it sought any new deals, he said. "If we really
wanted to go for them, these should be good for a couple of years
since these are big projects."

ICTSI recently won a contract to manage the Yemeni port of
Aden. Razon said ICTSI would begin sending people to run the port
by the end of September.

Aside from Aden, ICTSI also operates ports in Buenos Aires,
Argentina and in Veracruz, Mexico and will also soon develop the
Karachi port in Pakistan.

ICTSI plans to spend 1.20 billion pesos for capital outlay
this year, the bulk of which would come from internal funds.

ICTSI president Carlos Soriano said his firm was aiming for a
26 percent rise in its 1996 net profit to 405 million pesos from
321 million pesos in 1995.

Revenues are projected to grow 14 percent to 2.5 billion pesos
from last year's 2.2 billion pesos.

"The increase will come from volume growth. We're projecting a
15 percent increase in container volumes," he said.

Last year, the firm's container volume was at 708,191 TEUs.