Cosco Pacific, Asia's third-largest container-terminal operator, said profits fell 17 percent as a one-time gain from a year earlier masked rising volumes.

Third-quarter net income dropped to $77.7 million, or 3.5 cents a share, from $94 million, or 4.2 cents, a year earlier, the Hong Kong-based company said in a statement to the city's stock exchange today. Sales rose 20 percent to $91.2 million.

Cosco Pacific's container volume climbed 20 percent in the period, helped by the opening of a berth in Singapore and new investments in Egypt and Jinjiang, China. Still, China's overall container-volume growth is likely to slow this year as the credit crunch curbs demand for exports to Europe and the US.

"Container-throughput growth has been falling due to the global economic decline and a trade slowdown," said Roslyn Ji, an analyst at Core Pacific in Beijing. "Companies are also slowing expansion plans to cope with the weakening market."

Cosco Pacific, a unit of China Cosco Holdings, made a $27.6 million one-time gain a year earlier related to a pledge to buy shares in an affiliate.

The company has plunged 80 percent this year, the fourth-worst performance for a member of the Hang Seng Index. It rose 4.7 percent to HK$4.24 at one point yesterday.

The company's 20 global container-terminal ventures handled 12.2 million boxes in the third quarter. Volume at a venture in Guangzhou tripled, leading an 11 percent gain for the company's 17 ventures on the mainland and in Hong Kong.

Bloomberg

(HK Edition 10/30/2008 page2)