It said net incomefor the three months ended 31 March 2014 was just over MYR 109m ($33.5m) versusthe MYR 78.8m seen a year ago.
Revenue at the recentlylisted Malaysian company was up 4% to MYR 363m, while costs eased almost 2% toMYR 178.2m.
“Thesignificantly higher net profit was largely attributable to higher containerthroughput, termination of management service agreement and a lower effectivetax rate,” the company said.
“Excludingthe impact of the management service agreement and the lower effective taxrate, which are one off items, net profit would have increased by 10%, which isin line with container throughput growth.”
Totalcontainer throughput rose by 11.7% year-on-year to 1.93mteu, helped by a recordhigh monthly volume of 693,000-teu in March.
Westportssaid the better-than-expected container throughput was attributable to “robustgrowth in all trades lanes”.
The port saw volumes on the Asia-Australasia tradegrow 31% and that between Asia and Africa up 25%. Intra-Asia, which accounts forhalf of Westports’ volume, grew by 7%.
Goingforward, Westports said growth trajectory is expected to remain robustthroughout FY2014 boosted by increasing container throughput from gateway andtranshipment.
“Theexpansion of the new container terminal, CT7, is expected to increase totalhandling capacity to 11mteu upon being fully operational by end of 2014.”
Westportschief executive Ruben Emir Gnanalingam said: “We are very pleased with the impressiveset of volume throughput and financial results for the first quarter.
“Our terminal expansion is timely and we arewell positioned to leverage on the growth opportunity in the region especially theIntra-Asia, Asia-Africa and Asia-Australasia trade routes.”
