Accra, Feb. 9, GNA - The Produce Buying Company (PBC) has released its first quarter results for the accounting year October 2004 to September 2005 in which it made a loss of 7.4 billion cedis in net profit after tax.

However, PBC's balance of 35.8 billion cedis carried over to October 1, added to the loss brought the net profit to 28.3 billion cedis for the first quarter under review.

The company therefore, managed to post a dividend of 11.9 billion cedis as against 7.1 billion cedis for the same period in 2003. Meanwhile, the Ghana News Agency's attempts to seek explanations for what accounted for the loss yielded fruitless results as the officer in- charge refused to talk after three attempts. PBC's net profit after tax for the first quarter of 2003 was 6.8 billion cedis.

Turnover for the first quarter was 270 billion cedis as against 457.4 billion cedis recorded in the previous accounting year. Gross profit for the period under review was 28.3 billion compared with 52.2 billion cedis for 2003 while income surplus went up to 77.7 billion cedis from 66.9 billion cedis for the first quarters of 2004 and 2003 accounting years respectively.