August 30 (SeeNews) - Romanian freight forward group Transport Trade Services booked a net profit of 61 million lei ($12.53 million/ 12.58 million euro) in the first six months of 2022, compared to 28 million lei in the like period of 2021, its parent company Transport Trade Services SA [BSE:TTS] said.
TTS Group's turnover rose by an annual 47% to 402 million lei, TTS SA said in a statement filed with the Bucharest Stock Exchange, BVB, on Monday.
The total volume of goods transported by the group by river and handled in ports in the first half of the year rose by an annual 4.38% to 7.68 million tonnes.
The main markets in which TTS Group is active, namely river transport services on the Danube and the port operation services in the Black Sea port of Constanta, were strongly influenced by the war in Ukraine, the company said. The war resulted in a massive increase in agricultural product flows, fuelled by both Ukrainian grain exports and a recovery in grain flows from Serbia and Hungary.
At the same time, as a result of the economic sanctions applied to Russia, some of the flows of mineral raw materials such as bauxite and raw materials for the steel industry were significantly reduced and some of the flows of chemical fertilizers disappeared from the market, TTS added.
To respond to market conditions, TTS Group inaugurated a logistics project dedicated to Ukrainian exports. The project ensures a significant increase of Ukrainian freight flows from Reni and Ismail ports via the Danube-Black Sea canal to Constanta port.
In May, the group announced it will receive EU co-financing for a 23.88 million lei investment to modernize the infrastructure of the Danube river port of Giurgiu.
At individual level, TTS SA booked a net profit of 31 million lei in the first six months of 2022, up by an annual 75.3%, while turnover rose 51% year-on-year to 273 million lei.
TTS Group consists of 16 companies, of which eleven registered in Romania, three registered in Hungary and one each in Moldova and Austria, and operates on the entire navigable course of the Danube, from Kelheim to Constanta and to Ismail/Reni in Ukraine. The group owns the largest river fleet in the Danube basin, with a capacity of almost 800 thousand tons, eight floating cranes, as well as port terminals in Constanta and in seven Danube river ports in Romania and Hungary.
TTS, founded in 1997, is the parent company of TTS Group, a provider of integrated logistics services on the Danube.
As at 1323 CET on Tuesday, TTS shares traded 4.68% higher at 9.84 lei ($2.01/2.02 euro) on the BVB.
(1 euro=4.8652 lei)