Cargo Handler Reports Slumping Business Worldwide

Dubai, UAE, March 25, 2009--Cargo handler DP World said that business at its ports dropped 8 percent through February.

The slowdown shows no signs of easing, the company said. The CEO of the Dubai-based company, one of the world's biggest and most geographically diverse port operators, said market conditions are changing on an almost daily basis, making it impossible to predict how badly business might suffer this year.

"Volumes are just disappearing," CEO Mohammed Sharaf said in a meeting with reporters. "It's not that we are losing our business to our competition. ... It's just not there. It's gone."

Trade at the company's ports in the developing world is faring better than in more established regions, where it has seen double-digit declines, he said.

The bleak outlook comes despite strong 2008 sales growth for the rapidly expanding company.

DP World said that profit from continuing operations rose to $620.8 million from $419.7 million in 2007.

Revenue jumped 20 percent year-over-year to $3.28 billion.

The company is delaying the addition of about 50 percent of new capacity it had planned. Sharaf said all new projects except those due to come online soon are "under review."

That includes expansion of the company's main port in Dubai and a massive complex known as London Gateway set to become Britain's first new deep-sea container port in more than a quarter century.