Annual Report 2019

MANAGEMENT DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS 13 The United Laboratories International Holdings Limited Annual Report 2019 Sales Team and Marketing In order to effectively improve the management of grassroots diabetes prevention and treatment and promote the implementation of the grading diagnosis and treatment system during the year, the Group emphasised on support for the “Double-Excellence Action – Grassroots Diabetes Prevention and Treatment Management Training Course” project. During the year, the “Double-Excellence Action” project has cumulatively organised 21 sessions in 20 cities across the country for more than 8,000 grassroots medical personnel, and was highly praised by experts and medical personnel who had participated in it. The Group plans to further promote the “Double-Excellence Action” and build an academic communication and interaction platform to facilitate the standardisation of grassroots diabetes diagnosis and treatment and to actively guard the health of patients. At the same time, the Group has formulated a county expansion plan for the sales team of finished products and will gradually implement it. In the future, the Group will accelerate the promotion of terminal coverage and maintain a balanced and healthy development of various markets. The Group will be committed to supporting professional sales and promotion with an academic system and continuing to provide high-quality products and services to the pharmaceutical market. Optimising Financing Structure During the year, the Group continued to optimise its financial structure and improve the liquidity to ensure adequate working capital. In September 2019, the Group was provided with a 5-year loan facility of HK$300,000,000 by China Development Bank Hong Kong Branch for the “Reclaimed Water Reuse” project of The United Laboratories (Inner Mongolia) Co., Ltd. In addition, in November 2019, the Company entered into a syndicated loan agreement for the dual currency 3-year loan facilities in the amount equivalent to up to HK$2 billion. The loan facilities have been drawn successively, mainly used for repayment of bank loans and replenishment of the Company’s liquidity. In February 2020, the Group fully repaid the RMB1,100,000,000 Corporate Bonds issued in China. In August 2019, United Laboratories (Hong Kong) (a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Company) and Evergrande (Chengdu) entered into the Investment and Cooperation Agreement with respect to the equity interest of United Laboratories (Chengdu) and development of the Land, and realised a gain of RMB200.4 million. As at 31 December 2019, bank balances and cash of the Group amounted to approximately RMB3,164.8 million (2018: RMB1,578.5 million), and the Group’s net gearing ratio was further decreased to 36.41%.