MB Subba

Besides revenue from hydropower, which accounted for about 81 percent of the Druk Holding and Investments (DHI) group’s revenue, it was the State Mining Corporation Limited (SMCL) that helped DHI achieve an “excellent year” in terms of financial performance in 2019.

In 2019, SMCL contributed more than Nu 235M in taxes, mineral rent and royalty. During the year, SMCL also paid more than Nu 270M to members of the community in the form of hiring, transportation charges and daily wages.

SMCL’s return on equity soared by 49.33 percent from 24.43 percent in 2018 with successful take-over and commencement of gypsum mining.

A DHI press release stated that the Druk Green Power Corporation (DGPC) in 2019 experienced better river inflows, mainly in the Wangchu basin, and increased power generation by 5.36 percent to 6,926.22 mega units (MU) from the aggregate generation of 6,573.99MU in 2018.

“The Chhukha hydropower plant faced technical glitches in one of its generating units, but it did very little to impact power generation as two of the five impacted months fell in the lean season and DGPC ensured 100 percent water utilisation factor then,” it stated.

Consequently, the net energy exported to India increased by 10 percent.

Accordingly, the net profit of the company increased by 9.47 percent to Nu 4,926.73M.

The Natural Resources Development Corporation Ltd (NRDCL) also achieved its best-ever operational performance with the highest performance in timber business, sand and stone extraction and disposal quantities in 2019.

Consequently, it registered a net profit of Nu 61.33M, which is one of the best in many years.

The Bank of Bhutan Limited (BNBL) left its competitors “miles behind” as it registered profit after tax (PAT) of Nu 1.25 billion (B).

The DHI in its report says that the Covid-19 challenges are opportunities. “We commit to complete group digitalisation including development of skillset, mindset and toolset by 2023.”

The DHI plans to continuously invest in development of skills and expertise of our investment abroad division while continuing to leverage on all possible networks as well as brand DHI for investing in the overseas market.