The interim results were slightly higher than expected. In the first half of 2009, the company achieved operating income of 1,378 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 10.59%; net profit (attributable to the owners of the parent company) was 888.87 million yuan, an increase of 85.08% over the previous year, and earnings per share of 0.13 yuan, slightly higher than our expectations (0.124 yuan). Net cash flow from operating activities per share was $0.18. Among them, the revenue and net profit achieved in the second quarter were 783 million yuan and 75.253 million yuan respectively. Although revenue still fell 11.81% year on year, net profit increased sharply by 126.44%, while net profit increased significantly month-on-month due to seasonal factors (31.59% and 451.94%, respectively). The company was less affected by the economic crisis, and sales of leading products continued to grow. The company's downstream beverage industry was less affected by the economic crisis. Soft drink production experienced a short period of zero growth in January '09 and then returned to rapid growth (around 20%) in February. This enabled the company's PET bottle business to rely on downstream sales to ensure that sales of the company's leading products, carbonated bottles, hot-filled bottles, and water bottles, increased 4.3%, 4.4%, and 16.8% respectively over the same period last year. Gross margin, which hit a new high since 2006, became the primary reason for the doubling of profit margins. The company's gross margin for the first half of '09 was 26.6% significantly higher than 22.8% in the same period last year, and 28.86% in the second quarter was the highest level since 2006. The gross margin of the main product, beverage packaging products (accounting for 92% of revenue), increased 1.2 percentage points to 17.0%, while beverage processing increased from 5.3% to 11.8%. In addition to the increase in the profitability of this business due to the improvement in the competitive environment in the PET bottle packaging industry in recent years, this is also related to the low price of the main raw materials of the products in the first half of the year. The decline in the period's expense ratio became an auxiliary factor in the sharp increase in profit margins. The company's expenses for the first half of 2009 totaled 210 million yuan, accounting for 15.25% of revenue, down from 242 million yuan and 15.70% in the same period last year. Among them, the reduction in financial expenses was the most obvious due to the decline in loan interest rates and the average current bank loan amount, down 25.26% year on year. Driven by the above two factors, the company's net profit margin increased sharply from 3.12% in the same period last year to 6.45% in the current period.