The South China focused port business trust, whose portfolio includes deep water container ports in Hong Kong and Shenzen, today announced an overall 5% increase in terminal throughput in 2012 over 2011, even achieving a 5% increase in its Hong Kong ports despite overall throughput for Hong Kong falling 5.3% in 2012.
Trading with Europe has been "rather disappointing" commented HPH Trust ceo Gerry Yim, adding "we certainly do not see a global recovery". Yim went on to say that the company is seeing a slow recovery in US trade with continuing economic uncertainty in Europe and that whilst the Chinese New Year unsettles Q1 results, performance in January has supported those sentiments.
Both revenue and throughput results fell short on projections, by 9% and 8% respectively. In an earnings call this morning, cfo Ivor Chow explained that the projections for HPH Trust were made at the time of the company's listing in March 2011 when exports to the US and Europe were both rising and ahead of the Japanese Earthquake . The fate of Southern Chinese ports is strongly tied strongly to the economic performance of Europe and the US, and in light of the sovereign debt crisis in Europe and a weak US housing market, Chow viewed the results as positive.
The Chinese government has forecast GDP growth at 3.53%, but Chow believes a great deal of that growth will be internally driven and so of reduced benefit to the company. HPH Trust's outlook for 2013 is one of moderate optimism, forecasting mid single digit growth with a slight improvement in terms of export business over 2012.
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