Annual Report 2019

CHAIRMAN’S STATEMENT 8 The United Laboratories International Holdings Limited Annual Report 2019 Upholding the sustainable development philosophy of “environment priority”, the Group constantly increased investments in environmental protection with advanced technologies and enhanced environmental management with focus placed on the national environmental protection strategy. The “Reclaimed Water Reuse” project of The United Laboratories (Inner Mongolia) Co., Ltd. （聯邦制藥（內蒙古）有限公司） was in pilot run at the end of 2019 and will basically realise zero discharge of point source sewage in the future. In the meantime, amoxicillin bulk medicine of The United Laboratories (Inner Mongolia) Co., Ltd. successfully passed the European Union GMP on-site inspection, and won opportunities for the Group in the competitive Eu r opean ma r ke t . I n add i t i on , Zhuha i Un i t ed Laboratories Co., Ltd. （珠海聯邦制藥股份有限公司） was included in the Fourth Batch of Green Manufacturer List issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and won the national “Green Plant” award, which demonstrated the recognition of the government to the Group’s environmental protection efforts, and therefore further improved the Group’s brand image and comprehensive influence. OUTLOOK Looking forward, the global economy will be on a downturn trend, and the COVID-19 pandemic will add greater pressure to China’s overall economy. By virtue of the special attributes of the pharmaceutical industry, the Group faces both opportunities and challenges. Driven by demands resulted from the novel coronavirus pneumonia outbreak, sales of the Group’s finished products, i.e. oral antibiotics and vitamin C effervescent tablets, increased significantly. As for the intermediate and bulk medicine business, as the epidemic spread and evolved into a worldwide pandemic, demands from domestic and overseas markets have been and are being on the rise, and prices of major intermediate and bulk medicine products stabilised and rebounded in 2020. As an enterprise that has been proactively performing its social responsibilities, the Group has cumulatively donated funds of over RMB4 million and epidemic prevention materials worth about RMB1 million to support the epidemic prevention and control. The Group will continue to contribute actively to the containment of the novel coronavirus pneumonia outbreak in China and around the world, and to the safeguard of human health. Although the future is subject to greater macro- economic uncertainty, it is expected that China’s pharmaceutical industry will continue to steadily promote the transformation, and the structure of pharmaceutical industry will be further improved, which will lead the industry to the high-quality development stage. The Group will continue to take insulin series as its strategic category, promote further sales growth and improve its market share.