China Nickel Resources Holdings Company Limited, a leading integrated mineral resources, nickel and steel enterprise in the PRC, announced its unaudited interim results for the 6 months ended June 30th 2013.

In the first half of 2013, the Group's turnover reached HKD 974 million, 9.6% lower than the corresponding period last year. Gross profit amounted to HKD 130 million. Overall gross profit margin decreased by 2.7%age points to 13.3%. EBITDA was HKD 204 million. Net loss for the period was HKD 100 million.

Mr Dong Shutong chairman and CEO of China Nickel Resources, said that "In the first half of 2013, while the global financial market remained stagnant, the operating environment of the PRC iron and steel industry remained challenging, and the Group's iron and steel business was inevitably affected. However, the Group has implemented the vertically integrated business model by utilizing the mineral resources platform in Indonesia and actively developing its ore trading business. Meanwhile, the Group increased its product offerings and optimized its product mix in line with market conditions to improve its competitive edge. To capture opportunities enabled by industry upgrade, the Group has implemented more environmentally friendly production procedures while shifting to the production of high quality iron and steel products."

For the 6 months ended June 30th 2013, the turnover of the ore trading business was HKD 850 million, 27.1% higher than the same period last year. The Group has been purchasing ores from Indonesia through an Exclusive Offtake Agreement at a fixed low price. In the period under review, the ores sales volume increased by 40.2% to 1.89 million dry tonnes from 1.35 million dry tonnes for the first half of 2012. The ore trading business contributed steady revenue and cash flow to the Group. At the same time, we are actively developing relationships with both upstream and downstream trading partners to further expand the ore trading business in order to realize a steady growth of revenue.