After a very difficult period of more than two years during the COVID-19, lockdowns and health restrictions have been largely eased and uplifted, and life has gradually returned to normality. Nevertheless, as a result of the sharp rising interest rates to combat inflation, the specter of recession continues to loom large in most of our major customer countries and threatens our business prospect in the near term. It is important that we stay alert and keep our organization in a much more controllable manner.

The attainment of carbon neutrality has become a worldwide mission. Our Group fully supports this initiative and shall put in our best effort to reduce our carbon footprint. We shall endeavor to optimize the use of manufacturing machinery, reduce the use of diesel oil to a minimum level, reduce, recycle and properly handle substances of wastes, and maintain our fleet of motor vehicles in good conditions in order to reduce direct emissions from our operating processes. We shall also strive to control and optimize electricity and water consumption to minimize indirect emissions. The Group is also exploring the use of solar energy to replace electricity and has planted trees around its factories in Shenzhen and Suzhou aiming at neutralizing carbon emissions. A working group has been set up to monitor matters concerning the reduction of carbon footprint and an external consultant has been engaged to aid measuring carbon inventory and provide improvement recommendations. We understand that increasingly, customers view candidates' efforts towards carbon footprint reduction as an important factor to consider in their supplier partnership process.

Global material shortages continue to plague the manufacturing industry although there are some signs of relaxation in certain products areas. We expect the difficult situation will continue to exist throughout the year 2023. The Group has initiated alternate sourcing engineering service to customers with Asian suppliers and this has met with great interests from them.

Our Hai Duong, Vietnam, factory is fully completed. We expect to move in to the new facility in the second quarter of this year and it will be in operation by then. There are a lot of customers interests.

Ben Wong

Chairman and CEO

Wong's International Holdings Limited