Good afternoon, dear investors. My name is Valdo Kalm. I am in charge of the group of Port of Tallinn, and Andrus Ait is our CFO. We would like to present results from Q4, but also yearly based results. I would like to start with main events from last year. Although we had quite a tough year, we managed to increase the revenue and EBITDA level, and that's very much because of growth of passenger volumes. The volumes doubled and reached 7 million, and we had quite a good trend or doubling from Helsinki route, from Stockholm route, and also from cruise. The increase of passenger volumes helped us a lot to compensate decrease of cargo business due to the sanctions to Russia and Belarus.
Here we had a decrease of revenues around 20%. I will come back to that. In the beginning of summer, our supervisory board made the decision to invest to Paldiski Harbor wind farm quay. That's important decision. That's decision for the future growth. We see really that we entering to the new business areas, what is serving the wind farms, the installment and maintenance of wind farms. We just got the proposals from the tender for the construction of the quay, and everything goes as planned. We have to start quite soon because we have to be ready in summer 2025, we will see the first revenues also. We closed completely the Paljassaare Harbor.
It was sold already couple of years ago. Now we really closed the operations and aquatorium. We moved on last year with planned investments. One of the biggest was the Terminal D area. We finished it. We completed it. It's under the operation. Everything is as we planned, basically. Also, a very important step was our designs of Old City Harbor detailed plans that was public in the end of the year. That's of course in cooperation with city government, and that gives us good platform to move on with detailed plans and to really fix and confirm the detailed plans for the Old City Harbor area. Then it's possible to start real estate business and start with the tenders.
There was a launch of a new ship MyStar from Tallink, quite important step was of us also in terms of volumes, in terms of new product, and definitely that's increasing usually the interest and volume of passengers. We prolonged Tallink's agreement with Gotland for the summer season. Our government made important decision not to exercise the option to purchase the ferries from us. That gives us very good position in new tender. Very important decision and positive decision, of course, for the Port of Tallinn. We closed two disputes last year with Tallink and Worldwide Cargo. From the June last year, there's a new supervisory board in action with good cooperation with management board. Now to the Q4.
As usually we describe in the trends, and then we show the figures. Starting with passenger business, we have seen continued growth in passenger numbers, although there was a decline in revenues due to the less ship calls, mainly plus some lowered port fees. On cargo side, decline was -17% although in revenues -5%, but all in all, the trends were the same. Decline came from liquid bulk and from fertilizers due to the sanctions. There was some additional sanctions also from December. Therefore, that was in our prognosis and the decline was smaller than we expected actually. Ferry business revenue growth was 12% from additional trips and bigger number of passengers, but also from the indexation.
Under the other segment, Botnica did a bit less charter days than the last year. Here are the volumes from Q4 and year. As I mentioned, we reached 7 million. We doubled the number. Maybe important for us is also that we see the quite stable ship calls over the crisis. That's maybe the most important from this slide. On cargo volumes, on Q3, - 17%. If you take yearly basis, then we lost around 20%, and the decrease came from liquid bulk and dry bulk. These are fertilizers. Positive is that all the other cargo types show the increase, especially ro-ro and containers. Again, a quite stable number of cargo vessel calls. That's important, although we lost the transit from Russia.
The shipping volumes are there. On the ferry side, the passenger number increased to the level of previous crisis period. On Botnica side, a bit smaller charter days than last year. Both business model shows quite a stable development. Future outlook. We believe that passenger business recovery continues from the discussion from operators, and we see the same, that there are new segments traveling from Finland to Estonia. There are more younger people plus families. Therefore, we see such a positive shift in a segment. Therefore, we believe that there is interest for travelers, and we believe that there will be continuous growth. Visibility is not very good, honestly. Therefore, adjust the prognosis.
As I mentioned, impact of sanctions against Russia and Belarus was smaller than we estimated, but it's also valid for this year because the impact is split between last year and this year. In this situation, it's extremely important to find the new growth. Therefore, we're working very heavily to find new ro-ro and container lines plus customers. Here we see certain positive developments together with our operators. For example, in January, there was a new line from CMA established in Muuga Harbor. We're negotiating with shipowners about the new ro-ro line. Therefore, it's really important to find the new growth there. Historically, we already built such a strategically south, north corridor to serve more and more Scandinavian countries. I mean, not only Finland, but more and more Sweden also.
Therefore, that's under the focus. As we already mentioned, then offshore wind farms, the older business model is also in our focus, and we see the growth possibility and long-term business to build the harbor for installment and maintenance, but also maybe invest to the maintenance vessels. We're just now analyzing that. Therefore, there are quite a positive possibilities for us as a port. We're preparing for the new contracts, and probably we will have this year new tender for the next period in our ferry business. Also, we see the increase of offshore business globally. Therefore, there are new possibilities for also our offshore ship Botnica. This year, we prepare the real estate business model.
If everything goes well and we're moving on with detailed planning, we have to be ready with business models for with the communication marketing to start really the real estate and announce the tenders in this old port old city port area. All right. Andrus will continue with numbers.
quite successful, actually very successful for passenger harbors, where the number of passengers doubled. It also impacted the financial results. It was also a good year for our ferry services. Very stable year for segment other, where mainly the operations of Botnica are. At the same time, for cargo harbors, the year was quite challenging. All in all, we can say that despite of the sanctions and dropping cargo volumes, the negative impact was lower than we expected.
As we look at the results of fourth quarter, we see decrease in revenue. Here we can bring out mainly two reasons. Firstly, revenue drop was caused by sanctions and lower amount of cargo. Due to that, we have less vessel calls in cargo harbors, and the revenue decreased. At the same time in the Q4 this year, the number of vessel calls decreased also in passenger harbor segment. To explain that, one ship which we are operating Tallinn-Helsinki ro-route was chartered out.
This impacted the revenue and also the impact of the compromise which we made in the first quarter 2022 that we lowered the port fees for Ro-Pax ships which are visiting our Old City Port regularly. This impact came on the picture on the fourth quarter. In the second and third quarter, we had some quite good number of vessel calls from cruise ships, and this helped to offset it. In the fourth quarter, we didn't have cruise ship calls, and the impact came or we see the impact in revenue. The second impact was elevated revenue level in 2021 as we sold the assets in Paljassaare Harbor, where we sold electricity distribution network or grid.
From there, we received EUR 0.4 million additional revenue. When we take this out, the revenue would be in 2021 in the Q4 lower. The profitability and the profit figures in the fourth quarter showed a drop or a decrease mainly due to higher cost level. The costs were mainly impacted by three cost items. First, the electricity and fuel costs, which have been higher throughout the whole year. Second impact is related to personnel costs, and the impact we can separate it or split it to the two parts.
The cost pressure is quite high in shipping sector in terms of wages and salaries. We made some changes there. Also, we adjusted provision for performance-linked bonuses based on the financial results of 2022, and this has also impacted the labor costs. The third impact on costs is related to one of impact from credit losses on trade receivables. We estimated that some receivables are uncollectible in the future due to the overall economic situation and the drop in cargo volumes, which impact also our clients. From there, we had also extra impact, EUR - 500,000 .
In 2021, we had on this cost item opposite impact. It means we collected some receivables, which we had already estimated as uncollectible. All in all, the impact was around EUR 3 million-EUR 4 million and those are those impact those factors which impacted the profitability. Operating profit was EUR 2.6 million and decreased by 60%. In the fourth quarter of 2022, we had also EUR 82,000 income tax as we expensed the expected the income tax from dividends of our joint venture company, Green Marine, according to the accounting rules.
Profit for the period decreased by 75%. In addition to overall cost level and cost pressure, it was also impacted by higher interest payments in the second half of the year. We invested EUR 1.4 million in the fourth quarter, which is almost by 70% lower than in Q4 2021, but it was totally by our plans and main investments were already completed by the end of the third quarter. There was some maintenance investment in the fourth quarter. As we look at the results for full year, then we see that we see growth in basically all main figures.
The revenue growth was 11% or more than EUR 11 million. The main support to the growth came from passenger harbor segment from passenger fees. The revenue from ferry business increased by EUR 3.8 billion or 30%. The rental revenue grew by 12%, EUR 1.2 million. These were the revenue items which grew the most. Adjusted EBIT increased by 3.3%, and percentage wise, the growth was significantly lower than in revenue. Here, also like in the fourth quarter, we can say that the cost pressure was high and therefore the growth here is has been lower than in revenue.
Adjusted EBITDA margin lowered a bit from 49%- 46%. Operating profit grew by EUR 3.5 million and amounted to EUR 30.8 million. Income tax was 28% higher than in 2021. We paid out more dividends. In 2022, the dividend payout was EUR 25 million. In 2021, it was a bit more than EUR 20 million, and this reflects also in income tax. Profit for the period was basically the same as in 2021, which we consider a good result. Investments decreased by 6%, but it was according to our budget, and the main projects were involved with the Old City Harbor.
Like Valdo mentioned, we opened the new surrounding area for Terminal D. We upgraded some galleries which connect the terminals to the ship and also made some repairments or building works for shoreline reinstallation. In Muuga Harbor, we improved the ro-ro traffic equipment as we built a new two-story ramp for ro-ro ships. When we look at the revenue over the years and also profitability, we see that the revenue before the years of crisis was quite stable on the level of EUR 74 million. During the years of crisis, the level has been around EUR 55 million.
Here we can say that we have managed to keep the EBIT level on monetary-wise, which we also consider a good result, taking into account all the circumstances. Now here are the results by segment-wise. In the fourth quarter, the Ferries segment was the one where we see the growth. The revenue grew by 12% and EBITDA 28%. The revenue growth is mainly attributable to indexation. We indexed. We can index the revenue there regularly on a quarterly basis, and therefore the revenue has increased, and the EBITDA growth is partly attributable to the elevated cost level in 2021, where we made bigger dock works for our ferries.
In Passenger Harbor segment in the fourth quarter, we see a drop in revenue and also in EBITDA. Revenue side, in Passenger Harbor segment, there was increase in passenger fees, but the offsetting or negative impact from vessel dues was higher, therefore the revenue fell. The Cargo Harbor has been impacted by the sanctions throughout the year. The revenue decreased by 5%, which is less than the drop in cargo volumes. Also due to the cost pressure, the adjusted EBIT has decreased. In segment Other, revenue decreased, and this reflects or corresponds to the lower number of charter days. We had 18 days lower charter period in summer.
This is nothing extraordinary. We can say that, you know, the number of charter days is same as in 2020. We can say that it was exceptionally high in 2021, and therefore we see a drop here. On 12 months level, three segments out of four showed increase both in revenue and EBIT. The highest growth was in Passenger Harbor segment, where the revenue increased more than 35%, and the growth in EBIT was about 30%, and it is mainly related to passenger fees, higher number of passengers, and also higher number of cruise ship calls.
In Cargo Harbor segment, there has been a decline throughout the year and by the end of the year, the drop was about EUR 2 million in revenue and a bit more in EBITDA. This is mainly affected by sanctions, and in the fourth quarter, there was a additional impact from the sanctions which were imposed from the beginning of December, where the Estonian government imposed the sanctions for... or total embargo basically to the crude oil and oil products from Russia. This had also extra impact to the Q4 results. Ferry segment showed good results.
We made 6% more trips and due to the indexation and We have managed to keep the costs here on a normal level or therefore, we see also good growth here. In segment Other, which contains mainly the operations of Botnica, despite of the drop in charter days, we see growth here. On EBITDA level, the growth was also supported by good results from our joint venture company, Green Marine. Moving on with cash flow and financial position. Cash from operating activities increased by almost EUR 2 million due to the fact that proceeds from sale increased more than payments to the suppliers.
Under this row, we have also EUR 1 million higher dividend income tax from dividends. When we take this out, the cash from operating activities would be even higher positive, more positive. Cash used in financing and investing activities was EUR -114 ,000, although we invested almost in same amount as in 2021. To explain that, we received three different grant payments from EU funds. About EUR 5 million we got from TWIN-PORT 2 project. Those project investments we already completed in 2021, but the payment was in 2022.
We received grant payment from TWIN-PORT 3 project which covers most of the biggest investment project for 2022. We also received one upfront or prepayment from Military Mobility Fund and there we are this is in connection with our new investment project as we are building a new key in Paldiski South Harbour. Cash used in financing activities is EUR 12.6 million higher than in 2021. Here we paid more dividends. This impact is EUR 5 million, and we also reimbursed bonds in amount of EUR 7 million.
This reimbursement we didn't have in 2021, and therefore, from there we got the extra impact to the cash used in financing activities. The net cash flow was EUR 9.5 million, which is EUR 1.4 million higher than in 2021. Net debt decreased by EUR 25.5 million due to the loan repayment and reimbursement payments for bonds. On financial position, we see that cash on bank accounts has increased. At the same time the gross debt has decreased. This gave us a good position to keep our dividend promise.
From Management Board side, we make a proposal or that we pay out at least 70% of our net profit to dividends. With that, we will finish our presentation. We have some extra slides about revenue generation for just information, and we will make a short break. You can submit questions by typing them in, and we will back in five minutes' time. See you soon. Thank you. Yeah. Welcome back. We have some questions sent by by webinar, but also we have one questions sent upfront, and these questions we will answer soon.
The question was, the big rise in operating expenses and personnel expenses in Q4 compared to the 2022 and 2021. Can you give some color on what is causing this and if they are temporary or permanent? Thank you for the question. As I already explained, on operating costs, there was two cost items which impacted the results. One was the price of electricity and fuel, which was around EUR 1 million higher than the Q4 in 2021. This we can say that electricity prices have lowered a bit in the beginning of 2023, so this impact is not permanent. Here we are dependent on the overall cost level. We...
This is the cost, which we can't impact much, or influence much. The second influence came to operating costs from credit losses and trade receivables. This cost item is one-off or temporary, and the impact was about EUR 1 million. This was a one-off impact. Personnel expenses were about EUR 1.1 million higher than a year before in the Q4. About 50% of the rise was impacted or was as a result of changes in personnel costs.
This part is permanent, and half of it is related to performance-based bonuses, which is temporary or depends mainly on the results, economic results, of the company.
The next question we got also via email. Are you planning to develop and operate wind farms or are you just providing port facilities to a developer? The question is about the positioning in our wind farm business. We position us to really provide port facilities. As I mentioned, maybe, we're just analyzing that, maybe we will also invest to the maintenance vessels. We are not going to develop or operate the wind farms.
Next question. Hello, could you please give your view why Q4 2022 was rather weak for Tallinna Sadam but very strong for largest your client and partner Tallink Grupp? Here we can comment our results. Our results were affected or impacted by also by sanctions and by cargo harbors where the share of Tallink is very minor or zero. We had also some one-off costs as I described Due to the bonus system and due to the credit losses which are one-off costs. I think the main impact came from there.
Next question. What is your feeling about the new tariffs agreement with Tallink? Very generally saying, we feel it as a balanced agreement, therefore it's in our prognosis already. That's very, very briefly. What increase in ro-ro and container vessel costs do you expect in 2023? As I mentioned, we're really working on it. We had in Q1 already or in January, one additional line. Therefore, we expect some 5%-10% increase of ro-ro.
Mm-hmm. How much of the increased personnel costs in Q4 was due to performance compensation? Does this happen every quarter or only in the end of fourth quarter? The sum or the amount of cost is about EUR 500,000. This is, this covers the whole year. This happens only in the fourth quarter. The impact, this is in the year, is only in the fourth quarter.
Mm-hmm. All right. Thank you for the questions. Thank you for the attention and for the trust and all the best for the year.
All the best.