Gozo Channel registered a profit of Lm273,000 for the year ending 30 September 2005, Investments, Industry and IT Minister Austin Gatt said yesterday.
This is the first time that the company is in the black since 2002 when Gozo Channel posted a loss of Lm853,000, followed by an even bigger loss of Lm989,000 in 2004 and a Lm10,000 loss for the year ended 2004.
Company chairman Joseph Borg said that revenue increased by 9.6 per cent to Lm5.3 million while the Public Service Obligation contract more than doubled to Lm1.5 million. With regard to passengers carried, the figures remained at 2004 levels at just under 1.29 million. The total number of vehicles carried were 411,000 (420,000 in 2004).
Operating costs went up to Lm4.7 million and administrative costs were slightly down at Lm453,000. He said the company was paying for rent of its three vessels and also for marshalling services at the Cirkewwa and Mgarr ports.
The company had to pay more than double its costs for 2004 for repairs and maintenance; Lm605,000, an increase of 110 per cent. Mr Borg said that this was mainly due to extensive maintenance work on the Ta' Pinu vessel, which is now five years old.
Since the installation of soft starters on all vessels, the company increased its fuel efficiency per trip although costs increased considerably. Average consumption per trip was now 261 litres, down from 340 litres in 2003 while costs rose from 17c per litre in 2003 to 28c per litre in 2005.
Minister Gatt said the results showed that the government's tough decision to restructure Gozo Channel in 2003 were finally reaping fruit. He said that the company had been close to insolvency and could not continue financing its basic operations with losses of almost Lm1 million a year but now the situation was considerably different although he acknowledged that the profit made was 'modest'.
The minister said that although the company should be profitable, it also has to fulfil its social obligations and because of this, the government increased the subsidy to Lm1.5 million in 2005. He stressed there were no immediate plans to privatise the company in the near future.