KLASCO stumbles out of the gate

  • 1999-07-22
KLAIPEDA (BNS) - The first five months of 1999 have not been especially kind to KLASCO, the sea cargo company based in the port city of Klaipeda, but at least things are brighter than in 1998.

The largest operator at Klaipeda port, KLASCO lost 9.7 million litas ($2,425,000) between January and May 1999. Last year during those same months, the loss was 10.4 million litas.

Valdas Sutkus, a KLASCO spokesman, said the reduction of metal freight, which once accounted for 80 percent of cargo, has cost the company dearly.

Over the first five months of this year, KLASCO handled 1.17 million tons of metal, or 46 percent of all cargo. Compared with the same months in 1998, metal cargo shrank 44.3 percent.

"Being a state enterprise, KLASCO hadn't looked for new markets or methods for increasing cargo capacity," Sutkus said.

The company's new executive, he added, is doing everything to find new markets as well as new cargoes. For that reason he believes KLASCO will end the year with a profit.

In the first half of this year, KLASCO moved a total of 3.07 million tons of cargo, or 32 percent less than the same time period last year.

Recently, the company was bought by the Viachema consortium for 200 million litas, led by one of the country's most influential people, Bronislavas Lubys, president of the Lithuanian Industrialists' Confederation.