The Bhutanese Leading the way.
Druk Holding and Investments’ (DHI) revenue increased by 9% this year mainly contributed from energy and resources and also the communication and transport sector
Presenting the performance report of the DHI and DHI owned companies for 2013, on Thursday the Chairman of DHI, Dasho Sangay Khandu said, the revenue has increased by 9 % up from Nu.24.72 bn in 2012 to Nu. 26.96 bn in 2013. He justified the increase from energy and resources with 12% and communication and transport with 11%.
The profit after tax also saw an increase by 15% to Nu.6,107.67 mn from Nu.5,294.91 mn in 2012 and expenditure increased by about 6% at Nu.899.70mn.
The Group’s consolidated net worth grew by about 5% to Nu.75.91bn as compared to Nu. 71.37bn in 2012 and the total asset grew by almost 3% to Nu.142.9bn from Nu.138.42bn in 2013.
“With an improved system put in place over the past six years, I am of the view that DHI and companies are better focused than ever to meet the targets set for 2014 and scale greater heights, in spite of the economic slowdown,” he added.
However, DHI’s share of profits from companies where DHI’s has a stake of less than 50 % decreased by almost 24 % from Nu.131.81mn in 2013 to Nu.167.69mn in 2012.
CEO of DHI Karma Yonten said, due to the poor economy and ban on housing loans some of the companies were not able to do well while the rest had made bigger profits. In terms of profit after tax the DGPC, BPC, DHI infra has done well while the remaining five companies, Bhutan Telecom, NRDCL, Druk Air, DPL and STCBL saw decline in profits over the year.
DGPC
The profit after tax increased by 25.61% to Nu.5,252 mn last year up from Nu.4,181mn in 2012, mainly due to the increase in Chukha power tariffs and because of better hydrology. It earned a revenue of Nu.13,051 mn last year, with an increase of 17.15% from the 2012 revenue of Nu.11,140 mn.
The export tariff of Chukha Hydroelectric Project (CHP) was increased from INR 2.00 to INR 2.25 per unit with effect from 1st January 2013.
Though the domestic consumption increased by 4% to 1,901.73MU in 2013 from1,828.02MU in 2012, the energy exports to India increased by 14.2% to 5,648.23 MU from 4,945.79 MU in 2012.
It also achieved an average power plant availability of 98.96% against an average of 93.24%. To bring optimization in the use of resources and result in efficiency gains, it formed a subsidiary profit center for independent management of transport and heavy equipment.
It also obtained a consultancy license from the Construction Development Board to provide services within and outside Bhutan.
BPC
The revenue earned in 2013 was at Nu. 6,420 mn compared to last year at 6,284 mn with an increase of 2.2%. Its profit after tax was at Nu.963.273 mn last year compared to Nu.898.32 mn in the previous year as BPC added 14,802 customers during the year taking the total number of customers to 146,497. Its sale of electricity increased to 1,841.46mn units from 1,769.59mn units in 2012. It exported about 5,600 mn units of electricity to India up from 5,273.10 mn units in 2012, an increase of about 5%.
At the same time, it maintained a global transmission loss at 1.11% as compared to 1.18% in 2012 and domestic transmission and distribution loss at 4.30% as against 4.32% in 2012.
As part of the Rural Electrification (RE) project, 6,226 additional households were connected with electricity and as part of the RE Fill-in project, 830 additional households were connected.
The BPC was also granted two more licenses from Bhutan Electricity in system operation and to build and operate a 500 kW wind power in Rubesa, Wangdue.
Drukair
Drukair earned a profit after tax of Nu.124.89 mn in 2013 with 22.35% decline compared to 2012 at Nu.160.84mn.
It operated the total flights of 3,822 compared to 3,555 in 2012, an increase of almost 8%. A total of 276 domestic flights were carried out carrying 490 passengers.
NRDCL
It has dropped by 6.7% in its total revenue from Nu.409.08mn in 2013 to Nu.438.453 mn in 2012. The report states it is mainly due to unfavorable market conditions triggered by the slowdown in the construction sector. The profit after tax was at Nu.30.833mn in 2013 compared to Nu. 51.930mn in
