Hello there, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining Port of Tallinn webinar, where we present the results for 2021 Q2 and six months. My name is Marko Raid. I'm the CFO for Port of Tallinn. Aside me is Valdo Kalm. He is the Chairman of the Management Board. During the presentation, you also have an opportunity to ask questions. For that, please use the question mark on the upper right-hand side. We will answer the questions at the end of the presentation. With this, I will give floor to Valdo to continue with the presentation.
Good morning. I would like to start with my presentation. Of course, with main events from Q2. We had a record volume from RoRo and bulk cargo. That's really a nice surprise. RoRo is real record and shows the good situation in Estonian import, export. That means we got some 25% increase from last year. With bulk cargo, we got the record over the 10 years, where we saw the growth of more than 30%. That's definitely good news and supports our main business. Also, our state decided to change the financing model for the construction of new ferry. That means that they will use E.U. money to order and build the fifth, from our perspective, sixth vessel, and then we will operate that. We got additional trips for regular this summer, and that's almost on the same level as last year, supports our ferry business.
We had annual meeting, this time again, electronically. Also our stakeholders decided the dividend, and we paid it out as we promised. Important is that we fulfilled our dividend policy. There was the decision by our supervisory board to prolong Margus Vihman's authorities as a Management Board member and Chief Commercial Officer for another three years. We got silver medal for Responsible Business. Same valid for our daughter company, TS Laevad. There are more and more environmental actions, and there are new rules in our Old City basins how to clean the vessels. Important milestone that TS Laevad served 10 million passengers since 2016. The main trends in Q2. We saw the growth on passenger numbers. That's 12%, but honestly, these numbers are lower than we expected due to the restrictions from governments. I mean, mainly from Finland.
We got the revenue growth and maybe more important is that it's still number of vessels growing who visiting our ports in Q2. There are 14% more vessels than last year, and in six months, 10% more. It's all about RoRo growth. That means these passenger vessels carrying the RoRo, and also we see quite nice numbers on cargo side. As we mentioned, on cargo, we see the continuous growth, 9% in Q2 and 9% over six months. This half year, we see the growth coming mainly from dry bulk and RoRo, but also on containers. We see 12% growth this time on liquid bulk, we see decrease, but it's really fluctuating as we always said, and it's very project-oriented. Ferry business is stable by the revenues and profits. Also under the other segment, we follow Botnica's actions and Botnica are doing well.
Botnica are serving still in Canada, ice breaking, plus additional offshore jobs. We see the stable revenue and profits from Botnica. COVID impact. As we already mentioned, there is strong downturn from March last year, although we have seen the growth on Q2. What we are saying that we're doing what we can to support the passenger business. We opened a new cruise terminal. There are very strict rules how to serve the customers in cruising model, but also on ordinary passenger business. The question is all about the restrictions and the willingness to travel. Therefore, to be honest, we are not very optimistic on next half of the year due to that third wave of COVID is coming. Cargo side, we see the continuous growth, and we see that will continue. On ferry business, no significant impact, very stable business. Same valid for Botnica.
We see the recovery of our daughter company, Green Marine. Profitability shows also positive signs due to the growth on passenger and cruise business. We will continue with our investments. There is a good cooperation with institutions, with our partners, operators, and maybe you noticed that we try to promote and motivate vaccination of passengers together with our operators. To the volumes. Back on passenger side, as I mentioned, yes, we see the growth on Q2, but still 50% down on six-month period. We are not optimistic on second half of the year. On cargo, Q2 shows good growth, same for six months. We already said that in our case, our portfolio is very mixed. We can serve very different cargo. Our operators are very active, therefore we are quite positive on the future trends also. Shipping volumes, ferries doing well on Q2.
Our local ferries, domestic ferries did very well. Passenger numbers up 55%, and then vehicles also 50%, but last year Q2 was very low level, but still we see the demand of the service. Estonians traveling a lot to the Saaremaa and also there are more and more tourists. Botnica shows stable charter numbers. All right, then to the financials.
Thank you, Valdo. Here are the results for the group, both for the second quarter and sixth month. As Valdo already said, second quarter turned out to be very successful for us. However, mainly due to the fact that last year, second quarter was the one most impacted by the COVID restrictions. We saw growth of almost all the indicators or main figures. We had growth in revenue, also adjusted EBITDA grew almost by 9%. Last year, second quarter, we had a loss. This year we managed to earn a profit partially that's due to the lower income tax costs, due to the fact that the dividends that were paid out this year were smaller than the dividends paid out last year. As a reminder, in Estonia, dividends are taxed when they are declared. There is no, so to say, classical corporate income tax.
The tax is applied when the dividend payment is actually being made, and this has impacted the income tax cost. Also, investments are down. Last year we had a very heavy period of investment. This year it's about half the last year's level. However, when we now look at the six months number, these are more on the negative side. We still have a slight decrease in revenue due to the fall of revenues in the first quarter. That's mainly because last year, first quarter was still mainly a normal period. Only at the second half of March did the restrictions started to kick in, and therefore also adjusted EBITDA has declined. Last year we also had one another event impacting the EBITDA level. That was the sale of Paljassaare Harbor assets, where we earned about EUR 1.6 million of income, which was included in the EBITDA number.
Those two components are still the main ones impacting this year's figure compared to last year's. Otherwise, on investment level, the same as second quarter, we had almost half of the last year's volume, and we are 7% behind also on the profit and loss figure. Looking at the results by business segments, the first item, Passenger Harbours, is the one where we are most concerned. Second quarter was successful. We achieved better results almost in all the segments, better or almost at the same level as last year. Passenger Harbour revenues and EBITDA increased. Cargo Harbours revenue increased as well. Adjusted EBITDA a little bit declined due to the one-time factors, mainly. Ferry segment and others were on the same level as Q2 last year.
On six months, still on the Passenger Harbours, we can see that the impact of the first quarter and the restrictions has been greater than the positive impact of the second quarter. On the six-month level, we have both decline in revenues and adjusted EBITDA. Cargo Harbours revenue has increased, adjusted EBITDA decreased due to the one-time profit from the sale of assets. If you take that out, we have increased also the Cargo Harbours EBITDA and Ferry segment has shown a little bit increase in revenues. However, due to increased costs, and we have said before this year, we already have started and these are still ongoing. There's a maintenance of main engines on all of the ferries. We will have a little bit elevated costs for this year compared to the previous periods.
Other segments where we mainly have Botnica and our Green Marine, a daughter company, there's a slight improvement in profitability both coming from better result of Botnica and Green Marine. Mainly we are concerned about the Passenger Harbour segment, and this is impacting our total results as well. On cash flow side, we have had increase on the cash from operating activities, also due to the lower volume of investments. Less capital is being invested, so cash used for investing activities has decreased, and those two combined have had a positive effect of EUR 4.6 million free cash flow. Cash used in financing activities has increased. This is due to the fact that this year we paid out the dividend on the second quarter. Last year, the dividend payment was made in third quarter, so it is not included in the 2020 figure.
Also we have not taken any loan capital this year, therefore the net cash flow for six months is negative by EUR 6 million, whereas last year it was positive by EUR 9 million. Due to the decrease of cash balance, mainly, also the net debt has increased this year compared to the six months last year. On balance sheet side, we don't have much changes when we compare to the situation at the end of last year. Basically, we are on the same levels. We have two slides where we have laid out the revenue generation and EBITDA generation by all four quarters. You can follow the development by segments and quarters, and I will not go deeper in detail at the moment. This concludes our explanation on the financial side of the results. Now we go into Q&A session.
You have an opportunity to write your questions. Please use the question mark on the upper right-hand side to do that. We have a short break. You can write your questions and in some three minutes time, we will start answering them and you can post more as we are answering the ones that are already presented. Please use the opportunity to ask questions. Thank you.
We'll start answering the first questions that we have received. The first one was submitted upfront, and I will read the question so you can follow maybe more easily. The question is that, last week, the press reported that the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications plans to buy four ferries between the mainland and the islands that are currently owned by the Port of Tallinn subsidiary, TS Laevad, for EUR 106 million.
How can such a potential transaction financially impact the Port of Tallinn's revenues in the long run? Is there a risk that after expiry of the current mainland island ferry connection agreement, the State will not look for a new operator, which could theoretically be TS Laevad again, but will set up a new State-owned company to operate the ferry service?
This is a good question. A few weeks ago, there was information in the newspapers that the State is discussing and they should discuss this question. The current contract that we have with the State, there is an option for the S tate to buy out the current vessels. They can either exercise that option or not. This is the basis for the discussion. The State has not decided. They need to inform us at least four years before the end of the contract.
This means by September next year. The State has one year to decide whether they want to exercise or not this buyout option. This buyout, the amount or the cost of the vessel, this is fixed. This was already presented during the tender for the contract. The only thing that a State needs to decide is whether they use the option or not. If, of course, they decide to use the option, that will mean that at the end of the contract period in 2026, Port of Tallinn will receive this EUR 106 million for the vessels, and then it's up to us how we will continue with this money, how can we invest that.
If the State buys out the vessels, then of course the service model for the next period will be different. There is no capital component. It will probably only be operational tender. As the question went, that is there a hypothetical possibility that the State will operate themselves? Hypothetically, yes, there is an opportunity, but I personally, and this is purely my view, I don't think that they will start operating that. Probably it will still be a new tender, but with then State-owned vessels. It will be at lower margins, definitely. How that will impact Port of Tallinn business, that's mainly, of course, it's separately reported as a ferry segment today. I would say that a large share of the revenue would be impacted if the capital component is not present next year.
On the other hand, then we have at least four years' time to think what to do with this capital and how and where to put it at work. The impact could be big, depending on what the State ultimately decides. This decision has not been made, and we are also active in terms of communicating the consequences of one or the other way to go forward. Of course, we are interested and willing to continue with the current model, but the decision is for the State.
Next question. Can you please confirm that there are no new cruises confirmed for 2021? We can confirm that there are already calls this year, around 20 cruise ships entered our port, and it's still some 40, 50 confirms for the next coming months. The final results, of course, will be clear after closing the Q3 results. Next question. Please comment on the process of the real estate development in Tallinn. Just remind you that we are on a detailing process of five plots or five areas, and now we are very close to publish design of first plot. It's , of course, up to City Government, but we're working with all five areas. Now, yeah, first plot will open for the comments for the publish.
Okay. Next question. Please comment on the comparability of upcoming Q3 with Q3 last year. Are they comparable from COVID restriction perspective? Good question. As stated before, this year has been a disappointment, I could say, for us. We have been more optimistic in terms of recovery of the passenger business. This is largely due to the fact that mainly Finnish Government has imposed tighter restrictions due to the COVID situation. Unfortunately, we see that when last year, at the end of the second quarter , the traffic between Estonia and Finland was basically free for all the passengers, then this year we still have or have had restrictions, and the COVID situation is worse. Unfortunately, this year, I could say that in terms of traveling between Estonia and Finland, the situation is worse compared to the third quarter last year.
As Valdo said, on cruise business, last year we did not have any vessel calls. This year, third quarter, we already have had several actual vessel visit with cruise passengers. On the cruise side, the situation is a little bit better, even though it's not easier than it was last year. It remains to be seen what the final figures are, but the third quarter is continuously difficult in terms of Passenger Harbour segment.
Would you give us a feel for the normal annualized maintenance investment level? If you talk about maintenance investment, it's around EUR 10 million-15 million annually. What would be the main drivers for dry bulk volumes? As I mentioned, it's a lot of Estonian export, there is good startup of some operators in Muuga Harbour. They made their investments, I mean, warehouses, cranes, and now we see the results.
Next question. Can you please remind why Q2 other segment is with negative operating profit? Seems like it's a seasonal effect, but why? Yes, it's seasonal, and it's because icebreaker Botnica, the winter contract ends at the second half of April. Second half of April, May, and large share of June, Botnica does not earn any revenue until at the end of June, it will go on a summer charter. This is largely the reason why second quarter has all in all a negative result.
How the recent accident or incident with the ferry Tõll affects the result of the ferry segment in Q3? Honestly, we don't see any big effect because Tõll has insurance contract behind that, and also there is still a valid guarantee from the producer of this hybrid system, therefore no major effect.
Yes. Of course, there will be slight increase maybe in some of the costs, but overall, we are not aware that there would be any problems in terms of insurance. As Valdo said, we had a guarantee on the system, and the cost should be recoverable. How that will materialize, we will see, but currently we don't expect any major impact. Next question. When explaining the ferry service revenue in first half 2021, you referred to the decline in fuel price index, but the fuel prices have generally increased this year. Please explain. I think what is meant here is that the adjustment of the fees comes with a delay. For example, this year's or first quarter fees are adjusted with the last year's, last quarter prices and et cetera.
When fuel prices go down, then we have a kind of elevated positive effect because the downward adjustment comes with a delay. When prices go up, then we have a delayed impact as well because the revenue will go up one quarter or behind. This kind of creates this small disruption, whereas cost levels are more daily following the fuel price changes, but the revenue adjustment comes with a delay. This is what is impacting revenues.
It appears that there are no more questions at the moment, so we thank you for participation. The webinar will be made available in a stock exchange announcement link, and it will also be possible to access it from our website. We thank you for your interest and hope to see you again when we have the third quarter results. Thank you.
Thank you.