Aia Group Ltd S/Adr

Good morning from AIA Central in Hong Kong, and welcome to our 2024 Interim Results Analyst Briefing. I'm Lance Burbage, Chief Investor Relations Officer for the AIA Group. With me on stage, I have Li-Yuan Song, our Group Chief Executive and President, Garth Jones, our Group Chief Financial Officer, and our three Regional Chief Executives, Jackie, Hak-Lei, and Liam. Also in the room, I have other members of our executive committee who can answer questions in case needed. With that, I will move over to our operator and open to questions.

Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin our Q&A session. If you wish to ask a question, you need to make sure that you are logged in to the Zoom webinar. Please click the hand-raising button and wait for your name to be announced. After I call your name, please press the unmute button on your screen and ask your question. If at any time you need to cancel your request, please unclick the hand-raising button. Let's proceed, and our first question comes from Charles Zhou of UBS. Charles, please press the unmute button on your screen and ask your question.

Hello, hi, good morning. Congratulations. I think it's a very strong set of results, not only about the value of new business, we're also glad to see 10% growth per share CER basis for OPAT and also the USFG. So I have three questions. The first question is related to OPAT and USFG, 10% growth CER per share basis in the first half. So what are the reasons and drivers behind And I think for the first time, AI also were glad to see that you provide us a double-digit guidance for the OPAT, 9% to 11% for the next three years. Can you maybe walk us through the drivers behind? And do you have any USFG guidance? That's the first question. Second question is related to China. I think previously you said you have a target of one new branch per year to open a new branch. Now it's already late August. Do we have any update for this year, new branch opening? And third question, we know in China we are seeing falling rates. Equity market is also very challenging. Macro environment is very challenging in mainland China. How are you going to deal with this? Can you maybe answer it from both asset and liability? And if possible, can you also maybe give us some sensitivities or quantified impact? Thank you.