Dear investors and analysts, good afternoon. Welcome to CITIC Limited 2021 Full Year Results Release and Investor Briefing. I'm Zhen Xin from the board office of CITIC Limited. Due to the pandemic, this briefing is held by live webcast and a teleconference. The briefing will be conducted in Mandarin with simultaneous English interpretation. Today's investor briefing has a Q&A session. If you want to communicate with the management, please dial in the conference call in advance. If you need to ask questions, you can press asterisk and one, and wait for the staff to connect you. Please note that the contents of this meeting and your questions may be recorded. Now, please allow me to introduce the management attending today's briefing. They are Mr. Xi Guohua, Vice Chairman and General Manager of CITIC Limited. Ms. Li Qingping, Executive Director and Deputy General Manager. Mr.
Liu Zhengjun, Deputy General Manager. Mr. Wang Guoquan, Deputy General Manager. Mr. Cao Guoqiang, Chief Financial Officer. We have Mr. Chen Zeng, Chairman of CITIC Pacific Mining, and Mr. Wang Kang, Vice President and CFO of CITIC Bank, joining the meeting by telephone. CITIC Limited 2021 full year results release and investor briefing officially start. First of all, please join me in welcoming General Manager Xi Guohua to deliver a speech.
Dear shareholders, investors, analysts, and friends, good afternoon. I want to welcome you to attend CITIC Limited 2021 full year results release and investor briefing. Chairman Zhu Hexin is unable to attend today's briefing due to an important temporary arrangement, and has entrusted me to deliver an opening remark. Here, on behalf of Chairman Zhu Hexin and the management of the company to extend our sincere greetings to all of you.
I want to thank all of you for your long-standing support and care to the company. I hope that you will continue to support us, and to create new future with us. The past year has been a year of breakthroughs in the business performance of CITIC Limited. In the face of the changes and pandemic unseen in a century, CITIC Limited has been working hard with one heart, maintaining its strategic determination. In this very dynamic environment, and we have maintained our strategic determination, implementing the Fourteenth Five-Year Plan, leveraging our comprehensive business advantages, and promoting high quality development. We have achieved remarkable operating results. We have made a very good start for the Fourteenth Five-Year Plan.
In 2021, CITIC Limited recorded a revenue of HKD 708.9 billion, up by 28% year-on-year, and a net profit attributable to ordinary shareholders of HKD 17.2 billion, up by 24% year-on-year, the highest growth rate since its listing. In the past year, the comprehensive financial services segment has adhered to the philosophy of green finance, intensified the efforts to serve the real economy, and continued to play the role as the cornerstone. The comprehensive financial services contributed to the company's biggest profit, with operating income and the net profit increasing by 12% and 20% respectively year-on-year. CITIC Bank's operating efficiency grew steadily. As their quality continued to improve, the pace of capital-light transformation accelerated, and the net fee income increased by 24% year-on-year.
CITIC Securities has become the only securities company in mainland China, with assets exceeding RMB 1 trillion yuan, and its net profit has increased by 55% year-over-year, reaching a record high. CITIC-Prudential Life's net profit increased by 16% year-over-year, and its risk management ability continued to be the industry leader. The Non-Financial segment seized the market opportunities and actively controlled the risks with a net profit growth rate of 40%, and its profit contribution to CITIC Limited increased from 32% in the previous year to 36%. The Advanced Materials segment made outstanding achievements and has firmly grasped the market opportunities and did a good job in risk control. The net profit increased by 89% year-over-year, and the net profit of Sino Iron increased by 121% year-over-year.
The New Consumption segment followed the market trend, strengthened the digital empowerment, and its net profit increased by 80% year-on-year. The Advanced Manufacturing segment continued to push forward intelligent manufacturing and a solid production performance, and its net profit increased by 40% year-on-year. It is because of these solid results that the company's share price rose 48.8% for the year 2021, significantly outperforming the Hang Seng Index, and also significantly outperforming comparable companies listed in Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The board of directors of the company has also decided to further increase the dividend payout. With total dividends for the year amounting to HKD 17.63 billion, representing dividend payout ratio of 25.1%, and dividend of Hong Kong...
of HKD 0.6 per share, a significant increase of 24.2% year-on-year. These practical actions also demonstrate our clear attitude of never failing the trust of our shareholders and investors. In the past year, CITIC Limited has enhanced competitive strengths through integration, built integrated ecologies for synergy, and strengthened development momentums for expansion. CITIC Financial Holdings has been among the first to be officially granted a financial holding company business license, and has been already registered and incorporated. This is a landmark event in the country's deepening of financial reform, and a breakthrough achievement in building outstanding conglomerates, which will become the most powerful engine driving CITIC Limited's high-quality development and injecting unceasing momentum into the company's development.
Special work such as increasing revenue, reducing expenditure, reducing cost, and increasing efficiency, slimming the business, reducing hierarchies, and deepening centralized management of funds and reducing leverage by synergy between Non-Financial and the financial segments was carried out in an orderly manner. The leverage ratio of the company reached a record low. The financial fundamentals continued to improve and the organization structure and management efficiency were further optimized. We have developed business in-depth and improved quality and efficiency. Major risks have been steadily improved, and the overall risk systems has delivered phased results. We put scientific and technological innovation and digital transformation in a prominent position, and are committed to provide the innovation-driving force for the company to improve quality and efficiency.
We held a seminar on the pathway towards carbon peaking and carbon neutrality, published a low-carbon development strategy of two increases and one reduction, prepared a white paper on carbon peaking, carbon neutrality actions, and insisted on making green and low carbon emissions fully integrated into the company's development pathway. This year is a crucial year of CITIC Limited to implement the 14th Five-Year Plan, and it is also a crucial year for making breakthroughs.
Faced with the more severe and complicated domestic and international environment, the company will face up to the difficult challenges, adhere to the general tone of steady actions and steady progress, implement the new development philosophy in a complete, accurate, and comprehensive manner, so as to speed up integration into the new development patterns, strive for excellence and speed in a stable way, comprehensively deepen our reform, persisting innovation-driven development, strengthen both finance and the non-financial businesses, prevent and resolve major risks, drive forward high-quality development, and continuously create new value for our shareholders and investors. Next, we have arranged two sessions. First session is that we're going to invite Mr. Cao Guoqiang, CFO of CITIC Limited, to give you a detailed elaboration on the company's performance and operations in 2021.
Therefore, thereafter, we'll take questions, and the members of the company's management will be available to answer your questions. Thank you. Dear investors and analysts, good afternoon. Next, I'm going to brief you the review of the full-year results of 2021 of CITIC Limited. Leveraging the unique competitive advantages of the diverse business platform, CITIC delivered record high results in 2021 in the complex operating environment, making a strong beginning for the company's Fourteenth Five-Year Plan. Revenue grew 28% to HKD 708.9 billion, up 25% on a comparable basis, and profit attributable to ordinary shareholders increased 24% to HKD 70.2 billion. We see that the average growth rate is 12% and 14% of revenue and the profit, much better than the growth rate of GDP of China.
The financial segment continued to perform well with a focus on business transformation and risk management. The Non-Financial segments capitalized on market opportunities and enhanced operating efficiencies. The last year, we see that the earnings per share reached HKD 2.41, and the dividend per share is HKD 0.6, increased by 24%. At the end of the year, the total assets has exceeded RMB 10 trillion, which is 9.7% higher than the beginning of the year. The net assets per share is HKD 25.83, 11% higher than the beginning of the year. The capital expenditure is RMB 42.235 billion. Let's have a look at the segments of our business.
93% of total assets is from comprehensive financial services. Mainly, the revenue has come from the advanced materials and comprehensive financial services. Among them, the advanced materials contribution exceeded the financial services, ranking the first in our business. Next, you can see on this slide, those are the earnings summary of the core subsidiary of CITIC Limited and the changes over the last year. I'm going to dive into more details later on. Here, what you can see is that according to the new rules, we have divided our businesses into five segments for the comprehensive financial services. We can see that over the last year, we have achieved the revenue of HKD 256.8 billion and profit of HKD 52.1 billion, up by 12% and 20% respectively.
Our insurance and trust and securities business have hit a new high, and we have achieved the business license for financial holding company from the PBOC on March 17 this year. CITIC Financial Holdings will aim to build a competitive financial holding company with global influence and strive to become a world-class leader in comprehensive financial services. Let's have a look at the CITIC Bank in our comprehensive financial services. The revenue increased 4.7% to RMB 204.6 billion. The profit grew by 14% to RMB 55.6 billion, marking the highest growth rate in eight years. It proactively promoted a capital-light transformation. Non-interest income increased by 26%, mainly driven by wealth management and bank card business.
The contribution of non-interest income increased 4.7 percentage points to 27.7%. The service charge has increased by 24%. The interest-bearing assets increased by 8.4%, while the net interest margin narrowed by 21 base points to 2.05% as it was affected by the market rate. The sound asset quality has been enhanced, and we have achieved decline in both NPL ratio and NPL balance. The NPL balance was 67.4 billion RMB, 5.993 billion RMB decrease from the beginning of the year with the NPL ratio dropped by 0.25 percentage point to 1.39%.
Marking the first decrease in both indicators in 11 years, the coverage ratio increased by 8.39 percentage points to 180.07%, the highest coverage level in 7 years. For CITIC Securities, the revenue grew 35% to RMB 97.3 billion, and the profit rose 55% to RMB 23.1 billion. Benefited by the revived domestic capital market, all businesses maintained a steady growth while investment banking, wealth management, and fixed income businesses maintained their top industry rankings. The total assets reached RMB 1.228 trillion, currently the only securities company in China with assets exceeding RMB 1 trillion, and it completed a RMB 27.3 billion placement to replenish capital and enhance risk resistance, laying a solid foundation for future business development.
For CITIC Trust, the revenue dropped 1.8% to RMB 8.6 billion. Profit declined 9% to RMB 3.5 billion, ranked second still in the industry. It proactively promoted business enhancement and upgrading, reduced the channel businesses and explored new business streams and optimized the business portfolio. For CITIC-Prudential Life. Premium income rose 15% to RMB 26.8 billion, and the profit grew 16% to RMB 2.9 billion, strengthened synergy with banks. The contribution of the bank assurance channel continued to increase. The total investment of insurance funds increased by 37% to RMB 175.3 billion, and investment income continued to increase, maintained a solvency adequacy ratio of 261% after successful issuance of RMB 4 billion capital supplementation bond.
We had recorded revenue of HKD 47.7 billion and a profit of HKD 632 million, up by 247% and 40% respectively in advanced intelligent manufacturing. Excluding the consolidated impact of CITIC Dicastal revenue increased 31% year-on-year, mainly benefited from the recovery of downstream industries, including the motor industry. We see a 3.4% increase of the auto manufacturing growth in China for advanced manufacturing segment. CITIC Dicastal had revenue grown by 23% to RMB 32 billion, and profit grew 40% to RMB 1 billion. We are mainly benefited from the recovery of the automotive market, with aluminum wheel sales increasing 8% year-on-year, maintained number one ranking in the world for 13th consecutive year.
We are pursuing high quality development empowered by advanced intelligent manufacturing. Line 6 was designated as a Lighthouse Factory, a first in the global automotive wheels industry. CITIC Heavy Industries had revenue grown by 79% to RMB 7.6 billion, and a profit grew 16% to RMB 227 million. We also have a strong momentum driven by solid performance in new business sectors, including offshore wind power, advanced materials, and specialty robotics, which contributed to the increase in profit. The R&D expenses accounted for more than 6% of total revenue for these consecutive years and achieved many breakthroughs in bottleneck fields. In advanced materials, the revenue grew 44% to HKD 282.4 billion, and the profit grew 89% to HKD 19.2 billion.
We benefited from rising commodity prices and continued increased production, reduced cost and enhanced efficiency. CITIC Pacific Special Steel, Sino Iron, and CITIC Metal Group all achieved historically high results. From the subsidiaries, you can see that CITIC Pacific Special Steel recorded revenue over RMB 97.3 billion, and a profit of RMB 8 billion, a year-on-year growth of 28% and 32% respectively. Despite the sharp fluctuation of raw material prices and the dual control policy on production quality and energy consumption, CITIC Pacific Special Steel successfully increased the sales by 4% year-on-year to 14.53 million tons by optimizing its product portfolio, increasing product prices when necessary, continuously reducing costs and enhancing efficiency.
Sino Iron achieved a profit of $950 million, 121% more than 2020, largely due to a combination of higher iron ore prices and ongoing focus on cost control and improved operating efficiencies. Sino Iron shipped more than 21 million wet metric tonnes of concentrate to the CITIC Pacific Special Steel and other steel mills. It continues to consolidate its position as Australia's pre-eminent magnetite miner and has shipped more than 100 million tonnes since the start of operation. For the CITIC Metal Group, the revenue grew 56% to HKD 137.7 billion, and the profit grew 22% to HKD 2.1 billion. For metals trading business, revenue increased by 56%. Niobium Products maintained its leading market share with 83% of the domestic market.
Iron ore trading volume reached 54 million tons and ranked at the forefront of the industry. In mining investment business, profit increased 26%, driven by 2.6 times year-on-year profit increase at our copper mine in Peru due to strong copper price. The disposal of 1.19% interest in Western Superconducting Technologies also realized a profit of HKD 300 million. CITIC Resources benefited from the rising crude oil price. CITIC Resources increased oil production by 6.2%, and average selling price by 72%. Both aluminum smelting business and the coal business achieved turnaround profit and led the company to realize a profit of HKD 1.1 billion.
In New Consumption segment, we delivered a revenue of HKD 65.6 billion, down by 6.4%, and a profit of HKD 1.6 billion, up by 80%. Excluding the deconsolidation of McDonald's China, revenue actually increased 7.6% year-on-year. This increase was primarily due to the revitalization of consumer markets after the initial outbreak of COVID-19. CITIC Telecom International recorded revenue of HKD 9.5 billion, and a profit of HKD 1.1 billion, up by 6.3% and 5.2% respectively. Sales of mobile handsets and equipment increased by HKD 636 million, up by 67%, which offset the decline in enterprise solutions and mobile services divisions.
CITIC Press recorded a revenue of RMB 1.9 billion, and the profit declined by 14% to RMB 242 million. Direct online sales increased by 9.2%, which partially offset declined sales and increased the discounts on bestsellers in the soft publishing market. Online sales increased by 9.2%, which partially offset the decline of sales. At Dah Chong Hong, recorded revenue of HKD 53.5 billion, and profit of HKD 550 million, up by 58.5% and 304% respectively, mainly due to a strong performance in our motor business, driven by the recovery of automotive markets.
For the new type urbanization, revenue grew 27% to HKD 56.4 billion, and the profit declined 70% to HKD 7.8 billion. Revenue growth driven by successful completion of project construction for the Beijing Winter Olympic Games, as well as the development of overseas markets. Tightened regulatory policies in the real estate market resulted in an overall profit decline for the segment. Property development operation and management had revenue and profit decreased by 8.2% and 4.3% to HKD 9.4 billion and HKD 6.4 billion respectively. Profit contribution from China Overseas Land and Investment declined for the year.
Other profit contributions coming from property rental business and sales of property projects such as the Glorious Garden in Yangzhou, Nove Mansion in Shanghai, and The Entrance at Ma On Shan, Hong Kong. Construction and engineering had revenue increased 42% to HKD 36.7 billion, and operating profit grew 11% to HKD 2.1 billion. Total amount of overseas new contracts reached 4.13 billion dollars. Urban operation segment had revenue grow 17% to HKD 11 billion, and the profit rose 36% to 1.1 billion HKD. Profit growth mainly came from water treatment business and disposal of equity investment. Thank you very much. That's all for my sharing. Thank you, the management team, for the briefing. Now we'll come to the Q&A session.
Now let's welcome the first question. Can you hear me?
Yes. Yes, we can hear you.
Good afternoon, management team. I'm Rona Liang from Bank of America. I have only one question regarding the dividend policy. I saw the dividend distribution had increased its original percentage. What are the considerations of the company's annual dividend arrangement and future dividend policy? Is there any potential for further growth in the dividend distribution?
Thank you for the question. In 2021, CITIC Limited achieved excellent results, laying a solid foundation for dividend distribution. The total annual dividends amounted to HKD 17.62 billion with a dividend rate of 25.1%. The annual dividend per share was 0.6 HKD, a significant increase of 24.2% compared with 2020. We have always attached great importance to the returns to shareholders and have been included in the Hang Seng High Dividend Yield Index. Over the last 5 years, the average dividend rate was 24.6% higher than the average level of 23.6% of similar comprehensive enterprises in Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
The total annual dividend increased from HKD 8.73 billion in 2015 to HKD 17.62 billion in 2021, increase of 101.9%. In the next step, we will balance the overall interest of all shareholders, financial profitability, and the company's long-term development needs, maintain the overall trend of long-term stability, steady and rising dividends, and repay shareholders with practical action so that investors can share the development fruits with the company. Thank you. Thank you for answering the question. Now let's welcome the second question. Thank you for the opportunity to raise question. My name is Wang Wei from Morgan Stanley. I have two questions. The first one is about the CITIC Financial Holdings license.
As one of the first companies to receive the Financial Holding license, what is your understanding of the strategic meanings and importance? Can you share with us the org structure of CITIC Financial Holdings and the future development goals and any plans for the future? The second question is about China Huarong. Will China Huarong be included into CITIC Limited and CITIC Financial Holdings? What are the impact for the future growth of the group?
Thank you very much for raising the questions. Financial Holding, we received license on March 17. The State Council in September 2020 released the regulation on the implementation of access management of financial holding companies in September 2020, and the People's Bank of China also issued the trial measures for the supervision and administration of financial holding companies, formally implementing asset management and continuous supervision of financial holding companies, which marked that China's financial holding company entered a new stage of regulated development. This is an important decision-making arrangement for the CPC Central Committee and the State Council to deepen financial reform, which is conducive to regulating the integration of industry and finance, preventing and defusing risks. We have always attached great importance to the application for the establishment of the financial holding company.
After intensive preparation in the early stage over the last two years, China CITIC Financial Holdings Co., Ltd. has been officially granted the license of the financial holding company and registered and established. This is the concrete embodiment of CITIC's comprehensive implementation of the decision-making arrangements of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council. It is also a breakthrough achievement and a milestone event for the company to build outstanding enterprise group, which has written a brilliant chapter in the development history of CITIC. We will use CITIC Financial Holdings as a platform to realize the centralized and unified management of financial equity, and this will be a very important and a brilliant chapter in the history of CITIC Group because it is our first financial holding.
Company. For CITIC Group, this is very meaningful and significant. For the CITIC Financial Holdings, we have the banking, securities, insurance, consumer finance and asset management. For Prudential, CITIC-Prudential, CITIC Securities, CITIC Trust, CITIC-Prudential Life, and the CITIC Consumer Finance have been incorporated into the financial holding. In the future, in the aim, in the goals of the development of the financial holding company, we have the following plans. Because the financial holding company is actually a new business model and a new member of the financial system, how can we do a good job in building the CITIC Financial Holdings so that it can commensurate with the influence of CITIC brand, so that the CPC Central Committee and all the people can feel assured about our performance?
We don't have any precedent here in China. We don't have any mature experience that we can refer to. We have to be brave enough to be the first and to blaze new trails. According to the guidance and requirements of PBOC, which is regulating financial development effectively by controlling risks and promoting high-quality development, we can leverage the overall advantages in optimizing the supply of financial services. The company will carry forward the innovative spirit of CITIC, and it will play to the advantages of comprehensive conglomerate and contribute CITIC's wisdom and strengths to China's deepening of financial reform and high-quality development of the financial industry, so that we can build CITIC into a big, powerful conglomerate and a very important player in the market. We have proposed our plan.
The overall plan is that we are going to build a company with global influence and a competitive advantage. We would like to drive the high-quality development of CITIC. It will become our number one engine. That is actually our high-level goal for the development of CITIC Financial Holdings. In the future, while we are making solid progress, we will follow the spirit and the requirements in an accurate way so that to improve and to innovate the mechanisms of management and also to control the risks and the related transactions. Those are stipulated in the management rules of CITIC. We are going to follow the market-oriented development and the conservation of resources and the synergy development and the international-oriented development.
We are going to make the development as our bond and the risk control as the basis, and to make synergy of the development as our principle to realize the goal I have mentioned. To be more specific of our strategic development plans, we have this one-four-three-five strategy. That is to build a first-class financial holding platform, improve the four function systems, which is the solid prevention control of risks, the integrated financial services, and to have advanced technology empowerment system and a good unified customer service. We also build these three core competencies, so that's the three in the strategy. The first is wealth management competency. The second is asset management competency. The third is the comprehensive financing competency.
For the 5-in-1 strategy, there are the five sub-segments. We have already introduced you banking, securities, trust, insurance, and consumer finance have been incorporated into CITIC Financial Holdings, into our business license. Those are the five sub-segments in the financial holdings. We would like to build a strong five sub-sectors. The above is the future planning of CITIC Financial Holdings structures, as well as our strategies for the future. Mr. Chen, please answer the next question.
Thank you very much for your attention about China Huarong. In 2021, according to the principle of marketization and rule of law, CITIC Group, as the leader of strategic investors, increased its capital investment into China Huarong, but CITIC Limited did not participate.
At present, China Huarong will not have a negative impact on in CITIC Limited's business, and we don't have the plan to include it into CITIC Limited. It will not have a negative impact on CITIC Limited's business operating performance and financial status. In the future, China Huarong will form a certain business synergy effect with CITIC Limited after slimming the business and reducing risks.
Thank you for the question. Let's welcome the next investor or analyst to ask questions.
Dear management, I'm from HSBC, Yang Haiyang. I would like to congratulate you on the very good results last year. I have two questions. The first question is about the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, whether it will affect the businesses of CITIC Limited. Any negative impacts there? Second question is about.[inaudible]
Thank you very much for the question. CITIC Limited has very few businesses in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, so the direct impact is quite limited so far. We have established a corresponding working mechanism, and we have paid close attention to the dynamic development and evolution of situation in Ukraine. We carefully assessed the impact of the conflict on CITIC Limited's business operation, and we've made a proper risk prevention contingency plan. Thank you.
Thank you for the answer. Let's welcome the next question.
Hello. Dear management, I'm from Goldman Sachs. I'm Peter. I would like to congratulate CITIC Limited, especially the banking segment, for very good results. I have two questions about CITIC Bank. The first question is, I hope that the management can help us to elaborate the development of the net interest margin and the development, the trend in 2022.
What are the measures that we have taken to stabilize the net interest margin? The second question is for, because the NPL has been controlled very well by the bank. I would like to ask about the quality of the NPL and what is the trend for the development of NPL ratio, especially for the real estate sector is releasing risks, and what is the impact of the risks released by the real estate sector? Thank you.
I'd like to invite Mr. Wang Kang to answer this question.
Okay. Thank you very much for the question. You have two questions. The first is about the interest margin, so you have three small questions there. But I'd like to answer with one sentence.
The net interest margin dropped a lot last year, and this year we're under pressure. We are confident in stabilizing the drop of the net interest margin. I'd like to answer your questions in the following respects. The first. We see the decrease of 90 basis points in 2019, and last year we reduced by 21 basis points, so we are under a lot of pressure. In terms of the trend, we see that the decline of the net interest margin has been changing. In Q4 last year, in Q1 it's 2.13%, so it has been reduced by 9 basis points. In Q3 and Q4 it is 2.01%.
We see this is the change in the net interest margin. The reasons causing the decline of the net interest margin, the first is the loan business because of the decline of the pricing of loans, and but the trend is stabilizing the whole year. The interest rate is 4.99%, a decrease of 32 basis points, and it has caused the net interest to degrade it by 20 basis points. Because while we are responding to the pandemic last year and to stabilize the economic development, we have released a series of very low-cost loans. We also are subjected to the lagging impacts. For the new loans issued last year, we have issued corporate loans of...
We have this basis points decreased by 4.6 and increased by 5.3. Increasing it by increasing the basis points. For the new loans, the pricing is quite good. We have this optimization of the institutions. For example, the consumer loans have been increasing. For credit cards, so it's going to exceed 8%. We see the revenue of loans is stabilized. Thirdly, for the tax or cost is very important because while we are in the market of declining of the interest rate, so it is very difficult to maintain this decline trend. We are going to control the cost as the top priority of our work this year, especially for the high priced.
For example, the institutionalized deposits and the large value deposit, we put them under management. For the sub-branch, we have developed sub-branch specific rules and goals. We are going to make a very strict regulation of the application, the approval of the loans, so that we can control the cost of deposits. In the meantime, the management will dig deeper into the operation of our small and the medium-sized clients. They will be a top priority this year because the loan revenue is higher and the financing cost is lower. Thirdly, with the improvement of the asset quality, which means that the NPL, the troubled loans are decreased in terms of the amount and the ratio.
For the low interest and the zero interest assets are declining, which will help us to improve the net interest margin. We're confident this year that this decline trend will be stabilized. The changes of the net interest margin will outperform the average in the market. I want to highlight that because we pay a lot of attention to the interest margin. But it is not our only goal. In addition to the RMB 4.89 billion loans, we have RMB 2.33 trillion investment, which has a lower revenue than the interest-bearing assets. But because some of the investments are the capital-light investments, we can seize the market opportunities so that we can have some non-interest income, especially currently.
We see that the demand for financing is not revived in the market. We are going to enhance our investment. Sometimes it can bring down the net interest margin, but it will contribute to our revenue. That's the answer to your first question. Generally speaking, we are confident to stabilize the decline of the net interest margin, which is a priority of our work. The second question is about that, about the asset quality, including the real estate business. Last year, for CITIC Bank, we have improved our asset quality. It is a general improvement last year, so we have made the announcement. You can see from the data that the NPL and the troubled loans, and for the larger caliber indicators and expected loans have been realized a decline in the ratio and the amount.
The NPL ratio has been decreased quarter by quarter. That's the first time that we have achieved this dual reduction in both indicators in years. We are going to maintain this trend in Q1 this year, and we have enhanced our resistance to as Mr. Cao Guoqiang has introduced a coverage rate which has been increased to over 180%, up by 8.4 percentage points. In the annual result, we didn't mention the specific data, but I would like to introduce to you that our asset quality is becoming ever more solid. Which means that we have the assets with solid quality. For this, we have reduced. We have downgraded those overdue loans for over 60 days to the NPL level.
For the 60- and 19-day overdue loans will be reduced by 2 percentage points. Last year, the newly increased NPL ratio has been reduced by RMB 19.1 billion, reduced by 0.58 percentage point. For the loan business has been reduced by 0.63 percentage point. The data I provided has reflected that the quality of the assets have been developing to a better direction. Behind the data are the improvements of management capability. For example, the optimization of business. The retail loan last year has exceeded RMB 2 trillion.
Because the NPL for retail loan is lower than 1%, we will stick to this strategy of improving the good outcome. For risk control capability, we have had a systemic improvement according to the effective risk control policy to improve future development. Also we had differentiated the credit and authorization mechanism. We also had the dedicated reviewer system and also the post-investment management system. You can see that last year, the revenue of our subsidiaries had a big growth, which contributed to the industry segment. The current economy in China, if we look at the domestic economy, is still very weak for further growth. Coupled with the impact of the pandemic and the geopolitical crisis, there are still many uncertainties. The improvement of high quality asset is still a pressure.
We are confident at the management team. We try to manage our own business well, and we are confident that high quality assets will be a very good outcome through all efforts we made. Last year, we have seen a tipping point for the improving of high quality asset in our group. Just now, you also ask about the exposure of real estate business. We had a data in our report. The overall exposure is HKD 58.8 billion, reduced by almost 12%. From the category perspective, the exposure on credit rate is less than HKD 400 billion. To be exact, HKD 377 billion. For the real estate loans, the security insurance essential, we had a decrease of risks.
Our own opinion is that the macro policy is turning for the better in the future. All the real estate markets and the businesses had a differentiated operation capability and revenue, and there are still risk for liquidity. At CITIC Bank, we had certain pressure, especially over the last two years. As you all cared about the concentration of real estate loans. Over the last two years, our management team has made a decision and taken various measures to manage the NPL of real estate business, which is higher than the corporate loans. The pressure is decreasing through the efforts and the exposure is manageable. For the property projects that are mainly located in tier one, tier two cities, accounting for 98%. The percentage in tier one cities is more than 50%.
99% of our property projects had the very sufficient guarantees. We also had thorough preparations for all the property projects. According to our estimation, we had all thorough preparation for the real estate business. Issuance of credit in the property market is still very prudent and cautious. For the existing property projects, we will strengthen the management. For the newly added loans, we will exercise strict access policy to control the risk very well and make sure the very sound and healthy growth. Thank you very much. Just now, Mr. Wang Kang shared with us the impact of our real estate business on the CITIC Bank. I want to add one more point.
For CITIC Group, apart from the relation with the real estate business, the CITIC Bank, also we have the CITIC Urban Development & Operation, CITIC Pacific Properties, and they are directly engaged in real estate business. Secondly, financial services-related real estate, mainly CITIC Bank and CITIC Trust, other industry enterprise under CITIC. I want to share with you the performance of the CITIC Pacific Properties and Trust. We had a very healthy financial operation. We did not undertake any high-level business model. For CITIC Pacific Properties, we focus our investment project in tier one, tier two cities. We mainly focus on the differentiated proposition in choosing property projects. We will follow the plan to focus on the project of the operation.
On top of that, for CITIC Limited, we had 10% equity in the CITIC overseas subsidiary, which is an outstanding subsidiary with very sufficient returns every year. CITIC Trust follow the requirement of regulators while optimizing the product structure. We also actively adjust the risk preference and the project structure to improve the quality of projects we've undertaken and reducing the risk and exposure of our property projects. The risk exposure has decreased 69% from the high point in 2019. In 2021, we had a further decrease of 33% of risk exposure. The risk exposure has been reduced dramatically, and the overall risks are well controlled. We also rely on the power of the market to defend the interest of all the investors. Thank you, the management, for answering the question. Now let's welcome the next question.
Good afternoon. Thank you very much for the opportunity. My name is Guangyue Han. First of all, I want to congratulate CITIC Limited for achieving great performance. I have three questions. The first one is about the price changes of bulk commodities. I want to ask about the main impact from the price changes of bulk commodities. The second question is about iron ore. In 2022, what is the expected fluctuation of iron ore price? What are the impact on the advanced material? The third question is about carbon neutrality. I know CITIC Limited has had huge progress on the carbon peaking and neutrality. What are the measures taken at the group to reach the dual carbon target?
Thank you very much for raising the question. The question you raised is of a great concern to the management team. The environment in the market is very difficult, just like the climate and weather of enterprise management. We should respect the laws of the market, not to be overconfident nor ignorant. We should also fully understand and use market risks, know fairly well what's happening in the market. As for the year 2021, the impact of commodity price changes on CITIC Limited is mixed with opportunities and challenges. Overall, the good news outweighs the bad news, and the opportunities outweigh the challenges. First of all, the advanced materials segment benefited significantly. The subsidiary in this segment fully seized on the opportunities during the upward market movement in the first half year and managed the risks during the high market shocks in the second half of the year.
The iron ore business of Sino Iron Project, the crude oil business of CITIC Resources, the steel products of CITIC Pacific Special Steel, and the overseas equity mining investment of CITIC Metal have all achieved good operating results. Secondly, the cost of the advanced manufacturing segment was under pressure. CITIC Heavy Industries and CITIC Dicastal gave full play to their competitive advantages in the industry structure and strengthened their ability to dynamically manage the raw material supply chain to promote cost transfer to the end users, while vigorously carrying out special efforts to cut costs and increase efficiency to actively absorb the impact of higher raw materials and ancillary parts. Thirdly, the headquarters market risk management capabilities was put to the test.
In the second half of 2020, we conducted a comprehensive review and optimization of our market risk and derivative business management system, process, and systems in 2021. We launched the construction of a comprehensive risk system. 2021's severe fluctuations in the commodity market put tremendous pressure on our market risk management, and also verified the success and effectiveness of our system and management mechanisms. We will always keep our respectful heart and do our market risk management work prudently, and also we will fulfill our responsibility to investors and shareholders with all our hearts. In the first quarter, the price of iron ore remained high. In 2022, the iron ore price for the whole year will be lower than the year 2021 on the average basis. In the short term, we expect the price will be fluctuated at the very higher level.
As for CITIC Limited, we see both opportunities and challenges, and the opportunities will outweigh challenges because our high quality iron concentrate market is in high demand and the Sino Iron will be very stable in the market and the price fluctuation of iron ore will be important to CITIC Metal, the risk management. These will be all the riskiest challenges to us, but we have the capability to control all the risk and impact in the reasonable level. For the CITIC Pacific Special Steel had a higher premium in the market. The impact from the iron ore prices can be controlled. CITIC headquarters has incorporated risk control into our overall system. We will stick to the systemic thought and try our best to play out the advantage as a financial think tank. We attach great importance to the Ukraine situation.
With the unexpected impact from the COVID, we will utilize the upstream and downstream of the supply chain, as well as other measures like derivative business to control the risk from the market in an effort to make sure the stable operation and the production. As for the carbon peaking and neutrality, CITIC Limited practice the three new one increase deployment. We will follow firmly on the green development path. Last May, we organized the seminar on the pathway to carbon peaking and neutrality, and announced that CITIC Limited would strive to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 and carbon peaking by 2025. In 2021, we have carried out the following work. First, we released the two increases and one reduction low-carbon development strategy.
The two increases reflects that, finance provides financing solutions for low-carbon industrial transformation, while industry takes the responsibility to amplify the low-carbon effect of the industrial chain and ecosystem. One reduction reflects that we will reduce our own stock of high-carbon business and high environmental impact investment, and actively promote low-carbon transformation. Secondly, we have compiled the white paper on carbon peaking and neutrality actions. We have carried out carbon emission verification and comprehensively mapped out our own carbon emission, on the basis of which we have prepared an action plan that can be operational and effective. Thirdly, we have played the role of, amplifier in the industrial development and booster for green finance.
In our business practice, we have made full use of our advantages as an integrated company to reduce carbon emissions in our own production and operations through energy substitution, energy efficiency improvement, green power and other measures, and promoted the reduction of emissions in the value chains through green industry, green finance and green products.
We believe that under the guidance of carbon neutrality pathway, a green and low carbon enterprise should have the following features, low carbon or even net zero carbon emissions operations in the production process, a business model that balances environmental and economic benefits, and helps reduce carbon emissions in the whole society through the industrial chain. This will be the direction of our continuous efforts. In the future, we will strive to become a banner for state-owned enterprises to contribute to carbon peaking and neutrality goal, and a model for the capital market to practice ESG responsibility. Specifically, in terms of environment, we will achieve full coverage of low carbon emission operation of industrial subsidiaries and environmental efficiency standards for all businesses of financial subsidiaries.
In terms of society, we will take green and low-carbon development as the focus of social responsibility of SOEs in the new era, and drive the transformation and upgrading of the industrial chain. In terms of corporate governance, we will realize the integration of environmental and economic benefits, and become a leader of green and low-carbon economy. In 2021, we will implement the two increases, one reduction low-carbon development strategy and the white paper on carbon peaking and neutrality actions to promote green and low-carbon businesses as a new growth driver for CITIC Limited. Thank you.
Thank you, the management. I'd like to thank the management for the questions, and I would like to welcome the next question.
Thank you very much for the opportunity. I'm Cai Guirong. I have two questions to ask. The first is about CITIC Metal, because last year you made the announcement of spin-off listing, so I would like to ask about the progress. I'd like to ask the next question about the leverage ratio, and I'd like to ask you about the opinion on the assets liabilities, and what's the plan for the future leverage ratio?
Thank you for the question. This question also concerns the market valuation management reform of CITIC Limited. CITIC Limited is a typical comprehensive conglomerate group with diversified businesses, varied, and rich business models, with domestic and overseas business presence, and a relatively complicated business and organization structure. For our analysts and investors, it can be a test for you, and we've caused some inconvenience to you.
When the market valued us using the net asset valuation method, there was a serious information asymmetry, and many of our valuable and promising assets and businesses did not receive the attention they deserved, which was one of the direct causes of the long-term undervaluation of CITIC Limited. The empowering value of our corporate headquarters to business segments and subsidiaries has also not been recognized by the market for a long time, especially the integration of the finance and non-financial business, and we see that you, the analysts and investors have given us a too high discount factor for diversification. I'd like to take this opportunity to appeal to analysts to spare more time to communicate with the management.
While we are developing a good fundamental for the company, we are going to increase the transparency and to adopt targeted systematic measures to promote the market value management reform so that the market valuation can be improved. We will continue to promote the spin-off listing of high-quality subsidiaries, including CITIC Metal Group. CITIC Metal, as one of CITIC Limited's most important industrial subsidiaries, actually, CITIC Metal is a high performer within CITIC Limited. CITIC Metal has a very stable management team with outstanding entrepreneurial spirit and management capabilities.
For a long time, CITIC Metal has been based on the two main businesses of commodity trade and mining investment, focusing on refining and strengthening special raw materials and new materials such as niobium, copper, iron, aluminum, titanium dioxide, and high-quality chromium, as well as other types of new and specialty materials. It attaches great importance to scientific and technological innovation, and has solved lots of bottleneck problems, which has contributed to the stable supply of metal materials important to the country. We should say that it has core competitiveness. In the last year, it achieved an operating income of RMB 110 billion and a net profit attributable to a parent company of RMB 1.7 billion.
China Securities Regulatory Commission formally accepted CITIC Metal's A-share mainboard IPO application in December 2021, and the company is now providing feedback on the CSRC's questions. If things go well, CITIC Metal is expected to land on the A-share mainboard market in 2023, and we hope the timeline can be brought forward. After the IPO, CITIC Metal will release its intrinsic value, as well as to boost the evaluation of CITIC Limited, as well as to improve the share prices of CITIC Limited. We welcome you to continue to attach your attention to the IPO application of CITIC Metal. The next question will be answered by Wang Kang.
In 2021, CITIC Limited's asset liability ratio was 89%. After excluding banking business, it was 59%. Down by 1 percentage point from the end of 2020. Compared to the high level over the last few years, actually it has been decreased or dropped from 4.4 x to 3.2 x. CITIC Limited has attached great importance to the leverage ratio, which has been decreased from 4.4 x from the beginning of the year to 2.3x . This is a very good performance. This is actually outperforming the average level in the market. Since its listing, CITIC Limited has attached great importance to leverage ratio, especially after 2016. We have made a systematic planning and management of the leverage ratio. Especially, we made it into a scale resource to put it under management.
We have promoted this renovation and reform. We have introduced the reform plan 1.0. Last year, we've introduced the centralized fund management plan 2.0, and we continued to implement this integration of financial and non-financial businesses and to reduce the leverage ratio. Our business have been optimized, but the liabilities last year has been dropped by more than RMB 38 billion, due to the internal centralization of funds and to reduce the leverage ratio. In the meantime, over the last few years, we've redoubled our efforts to manage the subsidiaries, especially for the interest-bearing liabilities, and to include it into assessment. In the performance assessment system, we have attached a very high value to it. This is very important to the development of CITIC Limited.
We highlight the high quality developments. In the future, we believe that our control and management of leverage ratio will be improved, and we will continue to introduce the Plan 3.0 to control the leverage ratio so as to deliver long-standing results. We're going to adopt better measures to control leverage ratio, so as to control it within a reasonable scope. Thank you.
Thank you, management, for the answer. Dear investors and analysts, due to time limit, we're going to ask the last analyst to ask a question.
Dear management of CITIC Limited, I'm from Tokio Marine, and I'd like to thank you for the invitation for attending to this briefing. I have three questions that I would like to ask the management. Just now, the first question is about the financial holding company. Just now we said that, you know, in the future, the priority is to develop the three core competencies. One of the core competencies, wealth management. I would like to ask that in the future, what are the strategic planning for wealth management and for the, what the plan for, fintech? Over the last year, the commodity price has been revised. I would like to ask that, what are the highlights of Sino Iron in 2021? And what is the development plan for this year? Thank you very much.
The first question for Qingping.
Thank you very much for your question. Financial, CITIC Financial Holdings is indeed that we hope that in the future, it will do a solid job in wealth management, no matter it is, mechanism, institutions, or plannings.
As you know, the wealth management potential is very large in China, no matter for the middle income populations or the total amount of the people with middle income. We say that wealth management is a very important market segment. For CITIC Financial Holdings, we have five sub-segment, or we call it five subsidiaries, that has a asset under management of RMB 6.7 trillion. We have 143 clients. We have a very good basis to continue to improve and to develop our wealth management business. Our plan is for CITIC Financial Holdings to implement its optimization of financial services and to
We are going to follow the requirement, the rule of law, and to prevent against risks, so that we will give full play to the role of the think tank as a class, so as we will integrate our resources and advantages to provide the wisdom support to our customers. Firstly, we are going to optimize the think tank and the services, the consultancy services to our clients. Secondly, for the product integration supply and channel integration, we are going to build a systematic open product system to bring together the good quality products selected by CITIC. Certainly, we are going to improve the quality of our services.
We are going to integrate the subsidiaries, our channels of customer acquisition, and combine the different scenario subsidiaries to build a closed loop of services to provide this across cycle wealth management in an integrated manner, which will contribute to the common prosperity of the country, because the wealth and the increase of the value and the maintenance of the value of the wealth of our clients can also contribute to common prosperity. The third, we are going to enhance our basic capabilities because we have all these financial subsidiaries as top performers in the industry, and they have a lot of top talents. We want to bring together the top talents to provide good service to our clients.
We would like to build such a team to provide good quality services and to shift from intermediary institution to a consultancy provider. Actually this is a strategic planning for CITIC Financial Holdings in terms of technological investment in order to realize the planning, no matter for bringing together risk management.
The related transaction management or CITIC Dicastal data-based wealth management. These all rely on the technology. In the CITIC Financial Holdings, we proposed the idea of empowerment through fintech. We will build the 1.0 version digital integration project and promote the infrastructure sharing, data resource sharing, management application interconnection and user experience interconnection central. We will strengthen intelligent control, break the glass door among lines, departments and the subsidiaries, integrate the financial technology sources of the group and its subsidiaries, and incorporate with outstanding enterprises in the industry and build open and integrated capabilities. We will provide intelligent wealth solution.
Now we'd like to invite Chairman Chen Zeng to answer the next question.
Thank you, the analyst. I will briefly answer your question. In 2021, the iron ore market is very promising, but the beginning of the year is a very high price and then decline moderately. With the impact of COVID-19, the CITIC Sino Iron Management team managed the operation very healthily. We have altogether 3,000 employees without any COVID cases in our Sino Iron, and the operation is very smoothly. This is the first highlight I want to emphasize. Number 2, over the last year, based on what we have achieved over the previous year, we had a record high in production, which can be reflected in the effective operation rate in the factory. Also, the energy consumption declined year-on-year and the efforts are cost reduction, efficiency improvement are reflected in better results and performance.
Sino Iron projects, through years of exploration in the market, we are still the biggest concentrate powder provider. We had maintained the number one supplier in the iron concentrate powder. In Australia, we are the biggest producer and supplier of concentrate powder. Like analysts introduced, in Western Australia, with the concentration of big enterprises, according to the ranking of export value, we are the top ten exporters in Western Australia. We were ranking number nine last year. In last year, we had an accumulative more than 100 million tons of iron concentrate powder. In this perspective, this is the outstanding result through years of preparation and efforts from the operating revenue perspective. Our profit and cash flow last year were very healthy and also achieved record high in 2022.
Sino Iron will strive to sustainable development. First of all, this year we want to solve the risk issues since the project was established. Also last year we received another 1 billion tons of licensing, which is a solid foundation for the proper future. This year we hope that the land issue and many other overlapping issues can be resolved gradually. Secondly, we will continue to improve production efficiency through technical research and breakthrough to pave for the future sustainable growth. The work for this year will be carried out during the impact of a pandemic. All the management team at Sino Iron had accumulated experience. I believe we will continue to work for the good performing result in the year 2022.
Today, we have received so many questions, and just now the management team reminded me that we can allow for the one last question.
Distinguished leaders, good afternoon. I'm Uma from... I have one question on the development target of ten, one hundred, and one thousand. What is the contribution from each subsidiary?
Thank you very much for the question. You shared the interest of many other analysts. For the management team, we believe that strategy is our one commitment. Under the leadership of the board of directors, we will move forward with implementation of the strategies. I want to share with you several perspectives. Number one is the five five three strategy, which enjoys solid foundation.
In CITIC Group, everyone knows the five five three strategy, and it has become a shared pursuit and a guidance for actions of every individual in the group. Five five three strategy has a good start. In 2021, we had a very good kick start and had a very fast growth. We also had good progress in laying foundation. In terms of laying foundation, our assets continue to be optimized, and NPL and liability ratio have been controlled at a very healthy range, and our operating capability is improving. In terms of deployment, we had entered into NPL management segment, become a biggest shareholder of Huarong. Also, this year, we hope to maintain the faster growth at CITIC Group. Our target this year is to realize the ten, one hundred, and one thousand target.
That's the target we set for ourself. 10, 100, 1,000 is the target proposed for the CITIC Group. Number 3, we will continue to stick to the finance and non-financial segment in order to prepare for the implementation of five five three strategy. On financial sector, the CITIC Financial Holdings has created many new possibilities for the future development in this segment. Our target will be move up to the building of a world competitive financial holding company during the fourteenth five-year plan. We hope the net revenue of a financial sector will be higher. For non-financial sector, we will continue to concentrate on the solution of bottleneck technology, the stability of the supply chain, transformation of emerging business segment, and also expand the dual circulation. During the fourteenth five-year plan, we do not set the percentage of finance and non-finance segment.
Just now, Wang Guoquan shared with us the 70%/30% are the percentage of financial and Non-Financial segment. As for me, myself, as the first Chairman of CITIC Financial Holdings, I believe that financial business need to make more contribution. For Non-Financial segment, we need to be more precise to be at the upstream of the value chain and increase the profitability and reinforce each other so as to create more value for all investors. Thank you. Today's results briefing has come to the end. Thank you all the management team and all investors. If you have any follow-up questions, please feel free to communicate with our team. Thank you very much. Thank you.