The state shipping company Crnogorska plovidba achieved a net profit of EUR 973.73 thousand in nine months of this year, which is several times better than in the same period last year, when it was in the red by EUR 1.28 million.
Positive results of the shipping company’s business are indicated by data from the report published on the website of the Commission for the Capital Market, writes Vijesti.
The newspaper also states that the good result resulted from the significant improvement of conditions on the world shipping space market that began last year, i.e. a large jump in freight rates, and what is now the former management, which was appointed by the Government of Prime Minister Zdravko Krivokapić, led by the former president of the Board of Directors, captain knew how to take advantage of the long voyages of Jovo Lazarević.
Lazarevic managed to force the previous charterer of the ships of the Kotor company, Sea Pioneer from London, to conclude new time charter contracts for the lease of ships at significantly increased daily rents.
Ships Kotor” and “21. May” from the end of the third quarter of last year, they started sailing for three times higher freight rates than the former DPS-led management had previously leased to Sea Pioneer, and at the end of last year, the company was once again, after a series of loss-making years, in zone of profitability, so it ended the year with a remaining profit of around EUR 100 thousand.
In addition, the company paid the last two installments of a loan totaling USD 5.2 million to the Chinese Exim Bank taken in 2012 for the construction of the ships Kotor and “21. maj” in the shipyard in Shanghai, and provided the money to complete the regular five-year overhaul, docking and so-called class renewal for both ships from its own funds in the first half of this year.
Although the effects of the work of the now former Board of Directors headed by Captain Lazarevic were more than good, this summer Prime Minister Dritan Abazović’s Government dismissed that Board and appointed the new one composed only of representatives of the parties that supported Abazović’s Government.
In the new Board of Directors, law graduate Tena Božović from the Social Democratic Party (SDP), high school mathematics teacher Ahmet Markašević, member of the Democratic Party from Ulcinj, economist and former director of the Kotor Municipal Company Milan Popović, shipping manager Nemanja Popović from the Socialist People’s Party ( SNP) and his party colleague and professional colleague Ivana Kečin, who has experience working in a yachting agency.
Popović was appointed as the chairman of the board, while Slobo Pajović from DPS, who has been in that position for years, remained as the company’s executive director.
The current management has continued to reap the fruits of the work of the former Board of Directors in recent months, which before its departure managed to conclude a new one-year time charter contract for the ship Kotor with a new lessee – Global American Transport from Chicago.
According to that contract, the Americans pay a daily rent of 20.6 thousand USD for Kotor, and that lessee recently took over from Sea Pioneer the time charter ship “21. May” under similar financial conditions.
At the end of September, Crnogorska plovidba also had EUR 283.3 thousand in unpaid claims from the previous charterer of the ship “21. maj”, by the Sea Pioneer company from London, local media writes.
