LONDON (Alliance News) - Asian Citrus Holdings Ltd Wednesday reported a significantly wider pretax loss in its recently-ended financial year, after it suffered a challenging year that brought two typhoons and a disease among its orange trees.
The orange plantation operator and owner said that its pretax loss widened to CNY556.5 million in the year ended June 30, from CNY51.8 million the year before, as revenue declined by almost a quarter to CNY962.7 million from CNY1.3 billion.
Asian Citrus suffered an incredibly tough year as its plantations were subjected to severe damage caused by two typhoons hitting southern China, as well as the Huanglongbing, or citrus greening disease, which destroyed many of its orange trees at its Xinfeng Plantation.
The average selling price of the group's winter and summer oranges crop declined 15% on the prior year as a result, while total orange production yield decreased 34.1% due to extensive damage from typhoons Rammasun and Seagull at the Hepu Plantation.
317,839 orange trees with a value of approximately CNY114.1 million were removed during the period between May and June 2015 due to the infection of Huanglongbing disease, which indicated the infection rate of approximately 19.9% of the number of total orange trees planted in the Xinfeng Plantation. 2,563 orange trees were replanted in June.
In view of the group's net loss for the year, the board does not recommend the payment of any dividend for the year, Asian Citrus said.
Shares in Asian Citrus were trading down 1.3% at 8.51 pence Wednesday afternoon.
By Karolina Kaminska; karolinakaminska@alliancenews.com @KarolinaAllNews
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