CMA CGM REPORTS 44% INCREASE IN HALF-YEAR PROFIT

CMA CGM REPORTS 44% INCREASE IN HALF-YEAR PROFIT    CMA CGM, the expansionist French shipping line, reported a 44-percent increase in net profit for the first six months of the year, to 207 million francs ($29 million).
   The result compares to net earnings of FFr144 million in the first half of 1999.
   Operating profit for the latest six-month period was FFr300 million, an increase of 136 percent.
   Revenue rose 37 percent, to FFr5.8 billion ($820 million), from FFr4.2 billion in the first half of last year.
   Following the launch of new services, particularly in the transpacific trade, CMA CGM increased its global traffic volume by 27 percent, to 756,000 TEUs, from 597,000 TEUs in the first six months of 1999.
   CMA CGM is entering the transatlantic trade this month, under a series of slot-charter agreements with Maersk Sealand.
   “New strategic cooperation agreements, intended to reinforce the group’s position on the world’s shipping routes, have been made,” a spokesman for CMA CGM said.
   CMA CGM expects to have revenues of FFr12 billion ($1.7 billion) this year, 26 percent more than the FFr9.5 billion of revenues for 1999.
   The French shipping group will take delivery of eight 6,500-TEU post-Panamax containerships next year.