BAGGAGE handling systems specialist Inter-Roller Engineering, which has just clinched another multi-million dollar project from Changi Airport, expects to return to profitability in 2003, its managing director Lim Yee Min said yesterday.

'Based on the overall projects and orders we have on hand, we will definitely perform better and we are pretty confident of returning to profit this year,' Mr Lim told BT in a phone interview.

Inter-Roller recently posted a net loss of $1.1 million on revenue of $13 million for the nine months ended September. This was compared to net profit of $417,000 on turnover of $23.3 million in the same period a year earlier.

The company, which provides baggage handling systems to airports in the region, also said in November last year that it expects a loss for the full year for 2002.

Mr Lim explained yesterday that Inter-Roller's recent loss was mainly because of low turnover, adding that the company expects a turnover increase in 2003, based on the orders it received in recent months.

The firm yesterday said it won a $25.3 million project to re-develop the baggage handling system at Changi Airport's Terminal 1. The project also involves the alteration and addition to the baggage system at Terminal 2.

Changi Airport said in October last year that it would be installing a new $80 million baggage screening system that can detect explosives, as part of its efforts to step up security. Inter-Roller's new contract is understood to be related to this.

Prior to this deal, Inter-Roller earlier sealed a $40 million contract to build an automated baggage handling system in the new Bangkok International Airport, and has another $44 million deal to help design and supply a baggage handling system to Changi Airport's new Terminal 3.

Mr Lim yesterday said that Inter-Roller's business in this area has seen a general pick-up over the past 10 years on the back of a rise in air traffic volume.

He said, however, that it was hard for the company to control or predict exactly when airports would give out baggage handling projects. 'Some airports delayed the implementation of such projects following the Asian crisis in 1996, and there were further delays after the Sept 11 events, which caused passenger volume to fall. But air traffic has been recovering and so many of our big projects came in recently.'

Inter-Roller's shares yesterday ended three cents higher at 23 cents.

《The Business Times》