BL reported that, riding on high cargo volume and handling bigger ships, Chennai Port Trust has set a record net profit of INR 302 crore during 2007-08 fiscal up by 54% YoY as against INR 197 crore in 2006-07 fiscal. Revenues increased by 32% YoY to INR 890 crore as against INR 674 crore.
Mr K Suresh chairman of Chennai Port Trust said that "The year 2007-08 was the best financial performances for the port trust in the last 10 years. The operating ratio at 64% was the lowest in the last 10 years." He added that this was due to tight budget spending.
| Year | Cargo | Expense | Surplus | Ratio |
| 2002-03 | 33.69 | 335.46 | 65.21 | 81% |
| 2003-04 | 36.71 | 368.56 | 107.17 | 71% |
| 2004-05 | 43.81 | 403.64 | 117.17 | 71% |
| 2005-06 | 47.25 | 431.69 | 118.15 | 72% |
| 2006-07 | 53.41 | 534.97 | 186.89 | 65% |
| 2007-08 | 57.15 | 628.09 | 227.24 | 64% |
Cargo in million tonnes
Others in INR crore
Mr PC Parida financial advisor & chief accounts officer of Chennai Port Trust said that except for the stores department, all the other departments spent less than the budget. He added that "We saved nearly INR 36 crore by way of curtailing expenditure."
Mr Parida said that revenue from cargo handling and storage increased by 40% YoY to INR 286 crore as against INR 246 crore. This is due to 7% increase in traffic throughout during 2007-08 to 57.15 million tonnes. Significantly, during 2007-08, the port handled lesser number of ships, but got higher revenues due to handling bigger ships by way of port and dock charges. In other words, the gross registered tonnes at the port increased to 43.5 million tonnes as compared with 39.9 million tonnes a year ago.