The Star

Friday - March 28, 2008

by Jack Wong

Kuching

Swee Joo Bhd expects to take delivery of three chemical tankers in the next three to six months to boost its business of transporting crude palm oil (CPO) and related products to China and India.

Managing director Sim Mong Hong said the company planned to invest RM500mil in more tankers and container vessels in the next few years to expand its fleet.

The group now owns 34 vessels, comprising a 7,000-tonne chemical tanker, 15 container ships, 10 general cargo ships and eight support vessels, that ply domestic, intra-Asean and international routes.

Sim said the company invested US$50mil in a 7,000-tonne, 11,000-tonne and 12,700-tonne chemical tanker.

“The three tankers will transport CPO and related products between Malaysia and China as well as Indonesia and India,” he said after the company AGM yesterday.

He said the group planned to add one or two vessels to transport logs from Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands to China and Vietnam in view of the strong demand.

Swee Joo currently operates only one log carrier and plans to acquire more vessels to carry logs.

Sim said the group took delivery of a US$14.1mil container vessel last week to service the domestic and regional routes.

He said the group had improved the utilisation rate of the cargo space on its vessels to more than 40% from less than 30% for return cargo from Sabah and Sarawak to Peninsular Malaysia, given that timber products like plywood and sawn timber were now containerised.

Sim said the group had nearly completed the construction of warehouses in Kuching and Sibu and a depot in Kota Kinabalu Industrial Park that would add more than 8ha of space.

Swee Joo recorded pre-tax profit of RM37.1mil on turnover of RM297.6mil for the year ended Sept 30, 2007.

For the quarter ended Dec 31, it posted a pre-tax profit of RM9.4mil, down from RM10.3mil a year ago despite a 25.1% jump in turnover to RM86.4mil, due mainly to escalating fuel prices.

Executive director Allister Hilton Smith said the group had projected annual revenue growth of 20%.

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