HAPAG-LLOYD REPORTS HIGHER PROFITS, VOLUME FROM SHIPPING

HAPAG-LLOYD REPORTS HIGHER PROFITS, VOLUME FROM SHIPPING    Hapag-Lloyd, the German shipping, tourism and logistics group, reported a jump in profits and container traffic from its liner shipping activities for its financial year ended Sept. 30, 1999.
   Operating profit from liner shipping reached DM100 million ($53 million), on revenue of DM3.1 billion ($1.6 billion).
   In the short financial year from January to September 1998, Hapag-Lloyd had reported liner shipping operating profits of DM50 million on revenue of DM2.2 billion.
   On a comparable basis, operating profit was up by about 33 percent, Hapag-Lloyd said.
   The German carrier moved 1.5 million TEUs in the 1998/1999 financial year, 15 percent more than in the comparable period a year earlier.
   Gunther Casjens, chief executive officer of Hapag-Lloyd Container Line, said that the company aims to continue to increase its traffic volumes at a faster pace than average market growth.
   “The main factor contributing to our improved result was that the increased transport volume of 15 percent could be handled with no increase in personnel in our worldwide sales and logistics organization,” said Bernd Wrede, chairman of Hapag-Lloyd.
   Hapag-Lloyd said that it reduced its operating costs per container move by about 10 percent last year. Some of the savings were achieved by cooperating with other carriers within the Grand Alliance, the company said.
   Although initial cooperation covered joint sea and port operations, Hapag-Lloyd said that cooperation within the alliance “is also being systematically extended to the land sector in order to realize synergies for purchasing land transport and other services.”
   The Grand Alliance carriers recently started to buy rail services jointly in North America, as permitted under the U.S. Ocean Shipping Reform Act.