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Estonia's Saaremaa Laevakompanii (Saaremaa Shipping Company), operator of domestic ferries, made a loss of 3.8 million euros on its core business last year.
Estonia's Saaremaa Shipping Co sees loss of EUR 3.8 mln in 2012
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CEO Tonis Rihvk said that the quality of the company's main activity, ferry service, has been taken to new heights during the last two years, but the downside of this huge progress has been the deepening of loss.
«A jump in quality was rendered possible by 90 million euros of private investments made into new ships and 40 million euros' worth of funding from the structural funds of the European Union that was channeled into harbors by the state,» Rihvk said.
«Ordering of new ships was possible on the assumption that the number of trips booked by the state would grow at least in proportion with the rise in the number of vehicles and passengers. Instead the state orders decreased when the new ships arrived. At the same time demand has been steadily growing,» he added.
The statistics of ferry services between mainland and islands show that the number of passengers has been growing at an increasing rate for two years in a row since the new ships went into operating, spokespeople for the company said.
Consolidated revenues of the group totaled 24.8 million euros and total loss was 1.8 million euros in 2012.
Carriage of passengers and vehicles in public regular services accounts for 90.1 percent of sales revenue of the group. The revenue from ferry services increased 8.8 percent in 2012.