Good for Business, Investments, Lithuania, Port, Transport

"The size of investments is not very big and not impressive, but under our investment strategy, all serious work this year is preparatory work for the next leap in 2017, when a number of very serious and responsible projects should start and investment amounts will change," Arvydas Vaitkus said at a press conference in Klaipeda, reported BNS/LETA.

According to Vaitkus, this year's plans include continuing quay upgrading, navigation channel deepening and infrastructure projects, as well as launching new development projects. The state seaport authority this year plans to invest 17.5 mln. euros of its own funds and around 6 mln. euros in EU aid.

Martynas Armonaitis, the port's CFO, said that the port was planning to invest around 407 mln. euros in total by 2024.

According to Vaitkus, the port last year set not only a new cargo handling record, but also posted record-high revenue, with revenue from port dues up by 5.5 % compared with 2014 to 46.9 mln. euros and revenue from land fees up by 3.3 % to almost 7 mln. euros.

Armonaitis said that the port's 2015 profit should be higher than in 2014, when it reported a net profit of 23.342 mln. euros on revenue of 49.95 mln. euros.