Annual Report 2023

Chairman’s Statement CHINA MERCHANTS PORT HOLDINGS COMPANY LIMITED 8 Facing a complex and intertwined international environment, China adhered to the general principle of seeking progress while maintaining stability. By solidly promoting high-quality development, China focused on expanding domestic demand, optimizing structure, boosting confidence, and preventing and resolving risks. The macroeconomic control policies continued to take effect and the market demand continued to improve. Overall, China withstood the downward pressure from external economies, continued to promote the stabilization of scale and optimization of structure, made precise efforts in various domestic policies, and continuously accumulated positive factors. As a result, China’s overall development exhibited a positive and improving development trend. According to the statistics published by the General Administration of Customs of People’s Republic of China, the total foreign trade of import and export value of China amounted to RMB41.76 trillion in 2023, representing an increase of 0.2% year-on-year. Among which, the total export value was RMB23.77 trillion, up by 0.6% year-on-year, while the total import value was RMB17.99 trillion, down by 0.3% year-on-year. Container throughput in global ports grew at a slower rate in 2023 than in 2022 due to the slow recovery of the market. The Group’s overall operation still performed well with steady growth. In terms of port operations, the Group’s invested global port projects achieved a full-year container throughput of 137.48 million twenty-foot equivalent unit (“ TEU ”), representing an increase of 0.7% over 2022, and a bulk cargo volume of 557 million tonnes, representing an increase of 2.0% over the previous year. Looking into the regional performance, Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan contributed an aggregate container throughput of 103.41 million TEUs, representing a year-on-year increase of 0.7%; and overseas operations delivered a container throughput of 34.06 million TEUs, up by 0.6% year-on-year. Among the major ports in the Group’s portfolio, container throughput handled by the West Shenzhen Port Zone was 12.31 million TEUs, up by 1.9% year-on-year. In 2023, adhering to the general principle of seeking progress while maintaining stability, the Group focused on growth, accelerated transformation, and improved the quality of production and operation while maintaining stability. As for homebase port construction, the Group continued to reinforce the strategic objective of “building a world-class leading port”. Focusing on promoting efficient operation, the Group further enhanced the comprehensive competitiveness of the West Shenzhen homebase port as a world-class leading port, and focused on building the competitiveness of comprehensive port service in Sri Lanka. The Group actively promoted the green energy construction of Mawan Smart Port, and continued to help to strengthen the coordinated ports model in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. In terms of overseas business, the Group seized the opportunities of global economic and trade recovery, consolidated the main business capability of the container port of the homebase port in Sri Lanka, actively promoted the construction of the South Asia Commercial and Logistics Hub, and extended the comprehensive port logistics business. The Group has made an important breakthrough in its presence in Southeast Asia, and intended to acquire 51% equity interest in PT Nusantara Pelabuhan Handal Tbk, a company listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange under the share code PORT, which is conducive to promoting the Group’s strategic port network in the region. In terms of comprehensive development, the Group’s domestic parks advanced in parallel, and the overseas parks developed against the trend, with the number of enterprises entering the industrial parks of the projects in Djibouti and Sri Lanka increasing steadily. In terms of innovative development, by promoting the construction of applications such as “CMCore”, “CM ePort” and “Smart Management Platform (SMP)”, as well as the port Internet of Things base, digital governance system and network information security protection system, the Group continued to facilitate the expansion of green and smart ports. The research report, namely the “Research and Application of Integrated Intelligent Management Platform of Large-scale Port Group Based on Big Data Analysis”, has obtained the grand prize of Science and Technology Progress Award by China Ports and Harbours Association in 2023. In respect of capital operation, the Group continued to boost the “asset operation + capital operation”, stock