Japan's top three sea freight firms, led by Nippon Yusen KK, reported record net profits for 2004/05 on a China-led boom in the world-wide shipping sector and forecast a further rise in the current business year. Shipping firms have seen strong demand globally mainly due to brisk exports to and from Asia, especially China, and benefited from a tight supply/demand balance that pushed up freight prices. The Baltic Exchange Dry Index, which tracks the freight rates of dry bulk carriers, rose more than six-fold from 2002 to a record 6,208 in December 2004.
The index is currently hovering around 4,000. Thriving automobile exports also helped Japanese shippers as the country's auto makers including Toyota Motor Corp shipped out 4.3 percent more vehicles in the year to March, compared with the year before.
Nippon Yusen, Japan's biggest sea freight firm also known as NYK Line, said on Thursday its net profit doubled to 71.33 billion yen ($674.6 million) in the year ended in March. It forecast better-than-expected 26 percent growth to 90 billion yen in the current business year.
Reuters Estimates produced a consensus net profit projection of 65 billion yen for 2004/05 and 86.15 billion yen for 2005/06 in a poll of 14 analysts.