Photo: RNZ / Kymberlee Fernandes
The Ports of Auckland boss is betting his job on making a million dollars a week for the city within three years.
Today it announced it was paying a $30 million dividend for the year to its owner Auckland Council.
"We've had positive feedback from the council on the overachievement, so everybody's pretty happy," Ports of Auckland chief executive Roger Gray told Checkpoint.
Listen to the full interview
That's up from September 2019, when Ports of Auckland had suspended paying dividends to Auckland Council, as it looked to save cash for future expansion.
Auckland mayor Wayne Brown has always been highly critical of the port's performance saying it is inefficient and has wasted millions on a botched automation project.
Ports of Auckland chief executive Roger Gray. Photo: Supplied/ Ports of Auckland
Gray today said the port's success was bolstered by going back to basics.
"Getting the container terminal back into operations, increasing volume and also increasing number ship calls, and off the back of that, also increasing our price."
He said he had not heard back from Brown, but said the CFO of council was pleased with the number.
There was now a better understanding of the valuable role the port played in the economy, he said.
"We're projecting to continue and increase our dividends to the city. We've got a long-term target in the next three years of getting to $1m a week dividend for the people."
He said he was "absolutely convinced" that it was possible.
"I am deeply confident that we can continue to improve the ports from a safety perspective from an operational perspective and a profit perspective."
Gray said about 10 percent of the improvement came from the return of cruise ships over the past financial year.
"We're very excited about this coming cruise season. We've got the largest ever number of bookings that the port's seen. So that'll be incredibly vibrant.
"We're looking at in excess of 140 calls.
"The other exciting thing is we've started to see winter cruising and P&O have homeported one of their ships and she's been in and out all through winter, which continues to add to the tourism numbers within the city. So cruise will continue to be important and will keep growing for us."
He said investing in better customer experience for cruises was important for the city.