Sinofert's Net Profit down 25% for 2007      

Sinofert Holdings Limited (Sinofert, HK: 0297) announces the audited annual results of the company and its subsidiaries (the Group) for 2007.
    The Group's turnover amounted to HK$29.437 billion, up 39.34% year-on-year. The net profit amounted to HK$663 million, a year-on-year decrease of 25.99%.
    Sale volume amounted to 15.16 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 20.55%, accounting for 17% market shares in China Mainland in terms of pure nutrient, increased by 3.5 percentage points year-on-year. Of which, sale imported fertilizer amounted to 5.95 million tons, an increase of 12.26% year-on-year and accounting for 39% of total sale volume; sale volume of domestic fertilizer amounted to 8.61 million tons, an increase of 35.26% year-on-year and accounting for 57% of total sale volume. The sales volume of domestic fertilizer in total sales volume was up 6 percentage points, representing a new breakthrough in operating strategy and scale of domestic fertilizer achieved by the Group.
   Sales volume of potash fertilizers amounted to 5.69 million tons, up 24.88% year-on-year, uplifting the Group's share in the Chinese potash market to 55% from 45% in 2006.
    Sales volume of nitrogen fertilizers went up 26.74% to 4.70 million tons, bringing the Group's share in the Chinese urea market up to about 10% from 8% in 2006.
    Sales volume of phosphate fertilizers was 2.21 million tons, up 51.64% year-on-year; sales volume of compound fertilizers was 1.95 million tons.
   In 2007, the Group successfully acquired the interest held by Sinochem Corporation in Salt Lake Potash Co., Ltd, Tianji Sinochem Gaoping Chemical Co., Ltd, and in Sinochem Shandong Fertilizer Co., Ltd, and purchased equity interests in Gansu Wengfu Chemical Co., Ltd. These acquisitions brought the number of fertilizer production enterprise in which the Group had equity interest to eleven, boosting the Group's fertilizer production capacity to 7.85 million t/a in total, which was 4.82 million t/a more than that at the end of 2006. The Group has now become one of the largest fertilizer producers in China.