Rigas Transporta Flote                                          27.06.2005



JCS "Rigas Transporta Flote" Chairman Report to Shareholders for year 2004



As part of an earlier strategy the company continued the sale of older

vessels such as the mv «Amanda I», at a time when the scrapping prices were

high to warrant the sale of such units, and also the second hand market

prices had increased for older tonnage, which lead to the sale of mv

«Turicia». The tanker «Pacific Trader» was bought by the company and entered

a timecharter employment.



As the year progressed the reefer market conditions improved further and

looking back at previous years, the results did in fact suprise the members

of the reefer industry.



Simultaneously also the increased freights in other areas of shipping, like

containers, bulkcarriers and tankers have thrown positive signals, which with

some delay also reached the refrigerated tonnage fleet of the world. The

freight market continued over the otherwise slow summer period and the results

of the company were positively affected, in fact in a way that we had not seen

before.



The earlier diversification of the company's fleet structure has contributed to

a variety of commodities carried by its ships. 



The additional requirements of the food industry had also great bearing for the

fish and fruit shipments of our fleet, especially from the Pacific area into

Africa and Europe. The Russian imports have reached a new high for the fruit

and poultry imports, and this has supported the employments of refrigerated

ships.



The overall optimism for the employment of conventional reefer vessels has not

only prevailed during the year, but the time charter agreements concluded for

longer periods for such specialized tonnage of the reefer market show that there

is a turn of results in the companies owning such tonnage.  This inspite of the

strong containerisation of certain trades is expected to show continued positive

results also in the medium term future for Riga Transport Fleet.



As before our thanks go to the management and staff of the company ashore and at

sea for their usual good work during the current year.



Joachim von Reiche

Chairman of the Council