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2005 was an excellent
trading year for the Port with record net profits of £16.6m (up
11%) based on turnover of £29.6m (up 3%). This improved position
was driven principally by the Estate Division, which continued to
record ongoing growth in both turnover and revenue.
As a pre-cursor to the Port's 2006 - 2010,
£140m investment programme, capital expenditure on Port and
Estate infrastructure increased dramatically by 40% to £13.6m.
This programme, the
largest ever undertaken by the Port in a five-year period, will
deliver a new terminal for Stena at the seaward end of the Port,
additional container capacity and the first logistics park (40-acres)
on the County Down side of the Port.
In
addition, during 2005, 338,000 freight vehicles were carried by
services operating at the Port, 133,000 containers were handled
and for the fifth year running bulk traffic was in excess of seven
million tonnes, including a 73% increase in paper products and a
16% increase in aggregates. Over 1.2m passengers were also carried,
making Belfast the island’s busiest passenger port.
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