China Datang Group, the parent of listed Datang International Power Generation, is aiming for a 14 per cent rise in power output and turnover growth this year after reporting a 50 per cent jump in profit last year.
The group, the second-largest state-owned national power producers, posted a profit of 5.47 billion yuan last year, up from 3.63 billion yuan in 2005, its website said without specifying whether the figure was pre-tax or after-tax. Turnover grew 27.4 per cent to 70.3 billion yuan.
China Datang's profit growth rate is much faster than the 16.5 per cent to 24.7 per cent recorded between 2003 and 2005 as power tariffs were raised while an increase in coal costs last year was smaller than in the previous three years.
Datang International probably will report a 22.2 per cent rise in net profit to 2.73 billion yuan for last year, according to estimates by investment bank UBS.
China Datang said it aimed to generate 287 billion kilowatt-hours of power this year, 14 per cent more than last year, a slowdown from the 20 per cent to 21.5 per cent annual rates between 2003 and last year.
At the end of last year, the company had 54,059 megawatts of generating capacity, a 29.8 per cent rise from 2005 and almost doubled from three years earlier. It was 8.7 per cent of the national total of 622,000 MW at the end of last year, up from 8 per cent. a year earlier.
