ACHL.L Regulatory News (ACHL)

22 February 2012

ASIAN CITRUS HOLDINGS LIMITED

("Asian Citrus" or "the Company")

Response to Press Article

The Board notes an article which appears in the Next magazine on 22 February 2012 (the "Article") in relation to the Company. The Board would like to emphasize that the contents of the Article are not factually accurate and true and wish to clarify that:

1) The Group's three plantations occupy approximately 158,000 mu (103.3 sq. km) of land in total. Hepu Plantation, Xinfeng Plantation and Hunan Plantation have approximately 46,000 mu (30.7 sq.km), 56,000 mu (37.3 sq.km) and 53,000 mu (35.3 sq.km) of land respectively.

We leased the land for plantation from the farmer collective in accordance with the PRC Rural Land Contracting Law. The Group has properly registered all the leases of Hepu Plantation and Xinfeng Plantation with the corresponding Land Bureau. The corresponding Land Bureau has issued the Group with registration documents "Certificate of Other Rights on the Land Use Rights" to evidence the legality and validity of the leases.

The Group has very efficient and comprehensive internal control systems to measure and audit its plantations' production and corresponding revenue. The Company confirms that the actual production volume and corresponding revenue is consistent with the figures shown in the Company's annual reports and interim reports.

2) The office of Xinfeng Plantation was closed during the Chinese New Year holiday. The official holiday was until the fifteenth day of the Chinese calendar. The reopen date of the office was the sixteenth day of the first month of the Chinese calendar (i.e 7 February 2012), not 15 March 2012 as misinterpreted in the Article.

3) As mentioned in Listing Document dated 23 November 2009, the address of the leased property was occupied as a sale office of the property units of the Xinfeng Logistic Centre. The lease period started from 1 February 2008 to 30 January 2010. As the construction and sale of the phase I of the Xinfeng Logistic Centre has been completed, the Group decided not to renew the lease of this sale office after the expiry.

4) The Group's annual output of oranges for the year ended 30 June 2011 was 216,892 tonnes. According to USDA, the total orange production of PRC is estimated to be approximately 6,500,000 tonnes in 2010. Being single largest orange producer in China, the Group only accounted for approximately 3.3% of the market share. Thus, it indicates that the industry is very fragmented.

The Company are selling two types of oranges to customers, namely ungraded oranges (統果) and graded oranges (成品果). Ungraded oranges are packaged and the customers have to arrange for the transportation of the oranges at their own cost. Usually, the ungraded oranges are sold to wholesale customers. Graded oranges are oranges that the Company grade, package and deliver to the customers at the Company's cost, usually to supermarket customers. ONLY the graded oranges are under the "Royal Star" brand and they are usually sold to supermarket customers at a premium price compared to the selling price of ungraded oranges without brand.

The Group started our sale of oranges under the "Royal Star" brand to supermarket chains in 2005 with only two supermarket customers in Guangxi region. For the year ended 30 June 2011, the Group has expanded its sales network to 20 supermarket customers in many major cities and coastal provinces in China. However, the brand is relatively new to the market, and the Group is in the progress to build up the own brand by expanding the sales network to supermarkets in other cities in the PRC. Thus, our "Royal Star" oranges are ONLY available in our several supermarket chains customers in PRC during and shortly after the harvesting season.

5) Sales of self-bred saplings ("Contact Farming Program") is a program which the Group started in 2009 by selling self-bred saplings to local farmers who offer the Group with the first right to purchase their oranges through reciprocal agreements. The Contract Farming Program is separate and independent of the Group's existing plantation business.

Infant trees are small trees which have been planted in the plantation but not yet fruit producing because orange trees will start its first production at age 4. When the infant trees become fruit producing at age 4, they will be transferred to the category of orange trees. The final batch of orange trees in the Xinfeng Plantation was planted in 2007. This batch of orange trees had reached age 4 in the previous period and transferred to category of orange trees. As a result, during the six months ended 31 December 2011, there was no infant trees being transferred to the category of orange trees.

6) To the best knowledge of the Company, only persons authorized by the relevant company are entitled to obtain copies of information filed with SAIC ("SAIC Filings") under normal circumstances. The Company confirms that our subsidiaries in PRC have never provided any authorization to any person outside the Company for the purposes of obtaining the SAIC Filings.

The Company has obtained the true copy of SAIC Filings of Litian Xinfeng, a Company's subsidiary in PRC, for the year ended 31 December 2008, 2009 and 2010 directly from Ganzhou SAIC and the financial information obtained in the SAIC Filings is in agreement with the management accounts.

The Company has recently enhanced its information disclosures by adding the "Frequently Asked Questions" section ("FAQs") in its website (http://www.asian-citrus.com) on 21 February 2012.

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