All right, we are at the time for the meeting. Well, first of all, I would want to welcome you, ladies and gentlemen, to the ENN Energy Holdings Limited 2023 annual results announcement. I'm Mu Nini , and I would want to introduce to you Mr. Wang Yusuo, the Executive Chairman and the Executive Director and CEO Zhang Yuying, and Mr. Liu Jianfeng, the Executive Director and President, and Mr. Wang Dongzhi, the CFO, and Mr. Gong Luojian , the Senior Vice President, and Dr. Chang Lu, the VP responsible for IE business. Now, 2023 had been a challenging year for the company with external factors. We continue to be customer-centric, and we continue to face up to challenges in order to live out the resilience of the company. This is a challenging era, and it is full of difficulties.
But on the other hand, we utilize our internal energy and also our capabilities to face up to some of the headwinds and, at the same time, live out our strategy and also our development. There are three parts to our presentation today. The Chairman will start with an introduction, and then there will be a review of the operations in the past year, and then there will be a Q&A session as well. The Chairman, Mr. Wang, please.
Respected investors, respected analysts, old friends and new, good morning to you. We're at the annual results announcement of listed companies, and many of the listed companies in Hong Kong are giving out their annual results now, and you have chosen to be with us today at ENN. I would want to say thank you for that.
Today I'm particularly happy to share with you some of the development strategy of our company and some of our innovations as well. Now, just now, a lot of analysts and investors have been showing concern as to what I have been doing for the past period of time. Well, just to share personally, for me, fitness is something that's very important, physical fitness. For the company, it is also about physical fitness as well. We really want the company to continue in a sustainable manner to grow and prosper. As in my position, I have two responsibilities, I would say. First of all, in my role, first of all, I have started up the company from zero to now and also continue to develop it.
So that is in terms of founding and developing the company, and secondly, in innovation and bringing the development forward for the company. So for our shareholders and for our investors and analysts, what you are concerned about, about the fit and healthy development of the company. So I'll be talking about that in particular. Over 30 years of operation of the company, I think there are two main factors, one internal, the other external. Now, for internal factor, in this particular era and time, if I can talk to you about the industries, stage of development, natural gas in the past few years had been developing very rapidly. From 1992, national natural gas consumption was less than 10 billion units. And last year, at the end of last year, it was 40 billion cubic meters. Though, so that's significant growth.
As it grows rapidly, there is another impetus that is going on our development, and that is the Double Carbon targets. As you know, there are the targets of peaking and also neutrality, respectively, in 2060. We know after peaking, the second year, the third year would be decarbonization stage. Decarbonization, or lowering of the carbonization, would definitely be the age of natural gas because, for the corporations, apart from raising efficiency, they will also have to replace high-carbon fuel. From national planning, 2030, as we have mentioned, peaking, and for the developed countries around the world, we would have reached 600 billion units of gas usage. Then there will be 200 billion still as space and room for further development.
Some of the experts say that is a low estimate, actually, because the data centers, the algorithms are also using a lot of energy. And so energy consumption will be increasing some more. And the cleanest fuel would be natural gas. And it might well be over 400 billion units, but of course, I think this will be a minimum. So at the same time, apart from the existing consumption we see, there is still a lot of further room for growth and development. So that's macro. Secondly is market development, whether it is the national pipeline, the pipe network which had been set up and independently operating, and also our major client corporations' policies. All these are promoting the transformation of the industry, gas and energy industry. A lot of our clients, they want to select the best.
From the corporate's point of view, it is about empowering our customers, returning that power of selection to the customers. That will bring on an industry and commercial competition, and that competition will be fierce. Using the traditional model of the company would be difficult to maintain our growth and development. Our customers are all connected in our network. Whatever the situation, I have to be proactive. The supply side have to be proactive. But as the market developments, the demand side, the consumers, their selection power, their power of choice would be increased as well so they can choose different suppliers. Where it is marketized, you can imagine the original, chasing for, the margin or dollar margin, would that still be the case in the future?
If it is still about this, margin, if that is still the focus of our corporation, then there will be a decline in our business because a lot of suppliers are innovating. So this is another development of the market. So I would say natural gas business, overall, is definitely is still on a growth trend, and there is huge room for further development. But on the other hand, relying on traditional model of development will have to change. It cannot be sustained. So that, those are the external factors. As for the internal factor, I do not know how you feel in Hong Kong. I don't know what you feel. But in the mainland, the feeling is that AI and also intelligence technology is really coming on strong. Every industry, every corporation, if they do not think about intelligence, it just would not work.
And they will be highly anxious. So smart intelligence is already a most important factor in our time and era. And this time and era can really be labeled as the intelligence era. And whether it is the internet, major corporations or the major intelligence companies, everybody is saying that all industries are going to change according to the intelligence era development, whether it is Bill Gates or all the other leaders around the world , and also domestically in China. Some of the large model founders, etc, they all believe that in this era, all industries will have to come to that discipline of smart and intelligence. And I would say if we go according to our original logic, is it necessary? No, it's no longer feasible. We have to be innovative. We have to have a new model of innovation.
Only then would it be meaningful at all for our company. So, whether it is Maslow in terms of the pyramid of needs and also for us, ENN Energy Holdings Limited, where we are customer-centric, we have to go back to our original nature. And that is, we have to come up with something that is even more fitting for our customers, using intelligence to help us to achieve that end. Only then will we be adaptive to the times, and only then will we have sustainable development at our company. So ENN Energy, especially after 2020, in this period of time, we have been putting in extreme efforts, and we are very clear and convinced that intelligence is something that will completely give us the new energy of growth. And in this era, as I've mentioned, usually there are two types of enterprises which, which would thrive.
One, those who rely on their best practice and they continue to prosper and produce because this is an intelligence period. There cannot be overly many platforms, so one type of companies would build those. And secondly would be those who use intelligence to produce. Only these two types. The first type of companies will not be too numerous. And, of course, there are companies which basically have in this historic sense, and they have their own preferences. But from the major trends, there are basically these two types of companies which will continue to thrive, those platforms and also those who utilize the intelligence for production. So all industries will have this systemic and disruptive change. So from external factors, it is the entire industry with huge space for development.
And secondly, in this age of intelligence and smart operation, our industry will also have to transform in tandem with it. Now, for internal reasons, there are basically two. One is our customers. The other is our staff. For customers, the traditional method, the traditional method of extending our customer base and development, can it be sustained? Well, as I have mentioned just now, in particular, if we rely on investment to continue to expand our customer base, well, there are a couple of things I want to say about it. First of all, the market is no longer possible, especially for our industry. We rely on the mainland urbanization, high speed of urbanization, bringing on property sectors development. So as the standard of living and infrastructure enhances, they need gas. They need ENN Energy. And urbanization is now in a new era of new model of urbanization.
We can understand that, as the speed of development will not be as fast as before. Another point that I have to share with you is that if we use investment and acquisitions to expand our scale, that is no longer sustainable as well. The efficiency, effectiveness would be low because the cost is too high. With the high speed of overall development, we can be bolder in our investment. Now we have to be more cautious because if you're still using incremental scale, incremental utilization to raise our investment returns or investment feasibility, that is no longer possible. So the conclusion that we draw from all these is that there will have to be an innovative business model so that our customers can be created with the highest value by us.
So we have to utilize smart technology to excavate deeply the value of our customers and also use the ecosystem so that for our profit margin, it will increase. For economists around you, you would know this very clearly. This is not about just utilization platform. It is also about the overall, the entire, cost structure. As platform cost structure is lower, we will also be increasing our profits. The other internal point is staff. In the Mainland China, the employment system is aged, and it is problematic. And that plus our some of the software for our staff, it is more workflow. So that would bring on major management costs. And major management costs will have to be lowered. And so we will have to incentivize our staff.
So that also is about using smart technology so that our staff will be able to, be able to create their own clusters and create their own value for the customers. And at the same time, we have to develop healthily, and we have to put due emphasis on the development of the industry and also of technology. And for our customers, we have to be customer-centric to continually, continually enhance ourselves. And all only through this will we be able to develop cross-era and cross-age. And I'm sure the investors and, and our analysts all want me to talk about the macro factors more. And that's why I've overrun. As for the micro, Mr. Zhang will be talking about that. So I've talked about the factors just now. So what does ENN Energy do?
For our company, we will be steadfast in doing well our gas and also our smart home and IE business. Over the past 30 years, we have accumulated a lot of valuable assets. That is all our 30 million family customers and our 240,000 IE customers. That is, IC industrial and commercial customers. We will be building on our natural gas foundation to provide multi-pronged services and products. How do we do this? First of all, we have to strengthen and increase the scale of our natural gas business. How do we do that? We will utilize our smart platform, including our smart home and our IE platforms, to be in line with this new era, to utilize these advantages so that we utilize these factors to lead the industry in terms of cost control and also increase our scale and also to innovate.
To use scale to increase our profit is core. So we cannot just chase for margin, but we have to increase our scale so as to grow our absolute dollar of profit, not just the margin. So using smart technology in providing all supply of gas and also safety and measurements and meters, etc., and what we want to do is to provide a safe, reliable, and cost-effective supply. And as customers use our service, we provide purchasing, safety, and multi-scenario products that would include health, purchasing and safety and meter services for our customers in their homes so that they have quality assurance, so that their quality of life is raised. For our corporate customers, we will continue to grow the Integrated Energy IE business for them so that we provide gas. We have always been providing gas.
Now it's more electricity, cooling, heat, and also providing value to our customers through lowering of their costs, increasing their efficiency, and conserving their carbon use. So this is major contribution to our customers and also to our society. So that is raising ESG as well. So this is the macro era, the macro industry. I've talked about what ENN will be doing in that midst. Next, I will be talking about the difference between the two companies, ENN, our two different industries actually are different. So this is ENN Energy and ENN Natural Gas. So the two of them are different, and they have differential emphasis as well. As I have mentioned just now, the former is using natural gas as base, as foundation, to provide multi-value and service for the customers. As for ENN Natural Gas, it is using IoT data.
It is using the integrated industry chain and also using the industry big model. We call this industry big model to develop and set up a natural gas industry smart platform. That is the emphasis for the ENN shareholder. So for ENN Energy, we are providing to the family customers, our household customers with health, with purchasing, and various scenarios, innovation products and services. And for our corporate customers, it is for their IE service. As for ENN shareholding, it is really about the industry chain and also ecological partnership to provide smart trading and also smart risk management, smart operation, smart products to realize a platform trading which is safe, which is stable, which is low cost, and also to provide these smart products so as to assist the entire industry in high-quality development. So you can understand this as online and offline as well.
For ENN Energy, we also provide for our customers a service that is intelligent service. For ENN shareholding, it is industry smart production capability that we focus on. So increasing the capability of our customers. For each of the corporation within the industry, they can use the best practice within their industry to operate themselves. So their capability will be raised by our service. And this is very important and crucial for them as well, for their success. As mentioned, for ENN Energy, our two customer types are the household customers and also corporate customers. For household customers, it is smart consumption and quality assurance. For the corporate, it is lowering of carbon consumption and lowering of their costs. So we are providing for these customers the smart service. For ENN shareholding, it is for the industry smart production capability.
So that's like Alibaba to raise the capability of our customers' operation in order to achieve our growth needs. And for 803, it is to basically utilize our existing customer base. And that's why we are the number one shareholder, the biggest shareholder of ENN Energy. And at the same time, we have a very strong capability in terms of risk management and also delivery of our service. And you already have seen this in our listed company. And next, I would want to have a short conclusion. I think our generation is particularly lucky. We have gone through two transformations. One is 1992, the reform. I led the team in going into the Langfang company in natural gas. And ENN, the original company, had ridden on that high-growth wave of development. And that was our first 30 years of founding and development.
And now we have come to another era, which is the smart era. 20 you know, this year, we will continue to utilize smart technology to use this as a tailwind so as to ride on the high-quality development strategy and policy of the country. And on that basis, I'm sure we will have another takeoff, a major takeoff, to bring on even better returns to our investors. And at the same time, we will be able to for our analysts, when you write your reports on ENN, you will have even more content, even richer data to recommend and promote ENN. Thank you very much. Excuse me for going over time.
Well, thank you, Chairman. Yes. We continue to provide high-quality profits, products and services to our customers to create value for them. And next, we will have the sharing on the review of 2023.
Well, thank you very much. We will be reviewing the 2023 operations and the strategy for 2024. The past year had been challenging, and it had been complex. We have been continually tweaking our operations so as to provide the best product and services for our customers and also to achieve profit. The core profit reached CNY 7.59 billion last year. Domestic basic business increased 8.2% to CNY 6.09 billion. Core profit payout ratio increased from 37% to 40%. Total dividends amounted to HKD 2.95. Retail gas sales volume was 25.14 billion cubic meters. The group developed 17.56 million cubic meters installed daily capacity for CI customers and 1.85 million for our new residential customers. Revenue of IE increased by 32.5% to CNY 14.51 billion. Our safety investment and also checking had been increased and enhanced in the year.
At the same time, we use smart technology in our safety assurance. Last year, we have increased our investment into internet and also smart in terms of any leakage and network. And we have used over 100 items of smart apparatus and software to resolve some of the safety issues existing in our industry. The company had continued with sustainable development, ESG advancement. ESG is a part, an integral part of our operation. And in 2023, we have the ESG eco platform so that all our ESG work is going on the smart track, intelligence track. And for two consecutive years in MSCI, we have been given the top rating. And in the past year, in 2023, right after coming out of COVID, the cost of our raw materials had changed significantly.
Because of overseas cost effect, our LNG core profit had decreased 36%. There is a decrease of gross profit of 9%, revenue increased 3.5%, and core EPS is a drop of 4.8%. For our natural gas, our core business, the residential gas volume grew steadily. We continue to enhance our strategy and continue to create value for our customers. Overall speaking, the business overall had been improving. We have been able to achieve 5,300 million cubic meters for residential gas and 19,500 million for our commercial and industrial, that is, CI gas volume. We continue to increase new customers for both residential and CI. For IE business, there is a 32.5% increase in revenue and 32.5% in IE business revenue and also the 22.6% in gross profit increase.
So for the entire year, for value-added business performance, it is a 21.1% increase in gross profit and 18.9% in VAB revenue for value-added business performance. At the same time, we continue to enhance our solvency ability. Our average cost in 2023 is 3.53% in average finance cost, which is a decrease from the year before. Also for our gearing, it is a decrease of 0.5% to 25.3%. For financial management and cash flow in the past financial year, we continue to optimize our days by 1 day in terms of AR turnover from 13 days AR turnover to 12 days. Our sustained positive free cash flow inflow had also increased. For our free cash flow last year, it was CNY 2,132 million for financial year 2023.
Also at the AGM, we said that our payout ratio for dividend would be 40%, and it is HKD 2.95 for the year. The company will continue to maintain 3%-4% growth in dividend payout so as to reward our investors reasonably. Going back into and going forward into 2024, the key initiatives, first of all, Mr. Wang, our Chairman, had mentioned that from the economy to the overall industry, there had been a lot of changes. First of all, we see that there is a shift from high-speed growth to high-quality development for the overall economy. For our family or household customers, what they want is quality now in their everyday life. All the more, we are going to focus on products to services, from products to services, from material to spiritual for meeting the needs of our customers in their households.
We satisfy them in that way. In the past, there had been this knee-jerk consumption, and now it is more logical and intelligent in their purchases. We continue to provide quality products and services for them. As for the corporate customers, they want to reduce costs and increase their competitiveness. For low-carbon transformation, it is something that they need to grasp in order to further develop. From single optimization, we are transforming to overall optimization. This is responding to market changes in a timely manner. This is how we are going to increase our market share. We are moving forward in terms of quality production for our corporates. This is also in tandem with the macroeconomic development. At the core of this change is from source-driven to innovation-driven in the future.
These are a few points that you are all familiar with, the Double Carbon targets and also the co- prosperity. All these are bases for our future quality, green, and intelligent transformation. At the same time, there are a lot of other changes as well. Chairman Wang had talked about going intelligent and how that is going to change our services and products both for customers and corporates. So households will also be using intelligent products and services. And this is very important. And we also see marketization in China. And so this provides us with a foundation for giving back the autonomy to our customers. So only when we can grasp this opportunity, this developing new trend, will we be able to provide sustainable profitability and development for our company.
Now, Chairman Wang had mentioned just now that there are changes in terms of the economy and also about our customer base. So what we want to do is to, based on our natural gas foundation, to provide multi-product development for rapid and sustainable growth. So relying on our 35 years of accumulated customers and capabilities, we focus on customers and develop IE business and value-added business on the basis of gas, forming a coordinated development pattern of the three businesses and supporting new leap forward with a new development model using the platform of intelligence. And if we look at our natural gas business for 2024 from the demand side, there is a consensus, and that is domestic natural gas will have 6% growth. And how is this growth attained? So if you look at the seasonal figures of consumption, it is increasing season by season.
That would include high-quality construction, sectors, etc. They have over 6% growth. Photovoltaic in 2020 had grown over 10%. So these are all bases for 2024 growth. And also, we see other industries, for example, EV, etc., in 2024, January to February, there had been over 15% growth. So all these are sectors with 15% growth for textiles and autos, which have rebounded. So as we experience this kind of growth among the different sectors and providing the autonomy back to the customers and also adjusting their peaks, we will be giving more customized service to our customers. And also with the natural gas in the domestic and also overseas gas and also the coastal LNG terminals, all these are assets which are rich in terms of our resources and assets. And also, there is a stabilization and lowering of LNG overseas price.
This is because we have better source resource in domestic LNG. But at the same time, while we have all these resources, we have to know that the resources will have to be managed well because they are more marketized. Otherwise, they will become a burden for us. So in 2024, our potentials for development is huge, and resources is a huge pillar within that.
In 2024, for natural gas business development and expanding our scale of gas and using intelligence, we will have to use intelligence all the more to understand our customers, to understand their needs for usage and production, and also to respond to our customers rapidly, to provide customized and one-stop service to them from signing of the contracts to the cycles of their usage so that we satisfy their consumption needs and cycles so as to become more so that our customers are more loyal to us. For the entire year, we will have over 300,000 customers. We also know that there are certain changes in terms of certain sectors such as the property sector. We will be expanding 1.1 million new households and 300,000 old households with we will be developing renovation policies for them. These are our customers in the household side.
At the same time, for the commercial customers, we continue to provide good policies for them and also to continue to ride on the policy of from bottles to pipelines. We provide more packages for our commercial customers so that they can utilize this intelligent calculation of project price, engineering intelligence service, etc. We also have some new areas of development in the coastal area and also in the central region areas so as to increase our scale of gas. Also, where there had been no usage of natural gas for these potential customers, we will be converting them with our build-out. For example, in Zhejiang, a lot of the spinning and textile industries in the past, they have been using other energy. But after transforming to natural gas, they have decreased 20% of their costs in terms of energy.
So we will continue to do this to achieve our growth. We have over exceeded 600 customers with this gas technology solutions. In 2024, so these are some of the major opportunities for us. As the customers are switching their energy mode, we want them to switch to natural gas from us. Next, I would want to talk about the intelligence side, which drives the business value creation overall and also and also to upgrade the customers in terms of their usage and operations and resources optimization. As I've mentioned, we really have to understand our customers, customize for our customers, and also at the same time grow our customer base.
According to our deep understanding of our customers, we are all the better to provide a better mix for our purchase of sources, our source mix, so as to satisfy our customers and also to work towards the targets of our company in terms of growth. You can see that for our assets and for our resources, we have a huge base. I'll give you an example. With so many terminals and also our stations, through intelligizing, we can lower our staff need and therefore lower our staff demand, staff costs. We will use these intelligence matching and also intelligence services to optimize our resource structure and also provide even more precise service to our customers. For IE business, it continues to evolve in response to our customer needs. It is satisfying the customers in terms of their low-cost and also energy-saving needs.
In the future, we will be using, we will be providing heat and other products and services to our customers. We have already done that. Today, we see that they are even more demanding in efficient electricity consumption, low-carbon, and also intelligent operation. We are also working with the national grid so that in this, we are using our IE products and services to link up to the grid and the pipelines so that we are completely providing all-round services, that is, within the pipeline network and outside. Also through our understanding of our customer for the future, IE business will continue to grow because of our response and understanding of our customer needs. The new trends will bring on new opportunities, huge opportunities for IE business.
For example, in 2025, non-fossil will reach 20% for energy consumption ratio and 25% by 2030 for non-fossil consumption. Also, the NDRC, the National Development and Reform Commission, and the central government are really encouraging more quality investment into the distribution network. So the NDRC and the NEA have this guidance on high-quality development for the distribution network under the new situation, which will build distribution network below 10 kV. And further, we will have the target customers for new for our new quality productive parks and microparks, the there will our customer target is over 50,000. So this is for the new types of parks. And we will continue to solicit over 10,000 customers. And in the next few years, we will continue to achieve over CNY 100 billion in terms of revenue from this source. So these are for our industrial technology.
For IE microgrid model, we start from the customers. In the past, we have been providing green energy and also the utilization of energy to provide heat and cooling, steam, etc., all to lower the cost of our customers and to increase their efficiency. This is the low-carbon grid storage IE microgrid model that we have. We further have the entire solution and our implementation; all these bring on high-quality solutions for our customers. It also raises our own operation. We have all these customers, all these demand. Through our analysis of our pricing, we further enhance our value provision for our customers. In the past one year, even though in September we have only then built that into a standardized model, but in the short few months, we see that for IE microgrid practice, there are major advantages.
In particular, in the past four months, we have been able to use our capabilities. Therefore, from September to December, there have been 1,300 business opportunities which have already been identified. Our investment return had also increased. It is over 12% in terms of our IRR, which is highly beneficial to our bottom line. We no longer just utilize our existing capabilities, but we will further increase our investment in IE microgrid in order to raise our value to our customers and also increase our IRR. So we have various customer needs, for example, in lowering their cost and also in providing efficiency, etc. We have not really realized all that to them. But through our photovoltaic and also 3,000-kVA transformer and also our power storage, etc., we continue to through intelligence operation provide the solutions to our customers.
Our IRR is over 12.6% for our smart operation. Our customer value is also increased. The annual energy cost savings is CNY 0.52 million for our customers. Carbon emissions is reduced by 745 tons per year. So in the past, for our households and family customers, focusing on their needs, we continue to extend the service scenario, improving our intelligence and products and services. In developing our products, we have increased our understanding of the household. Through high-quality and high-speed service to them, we are able to satisfy these household needs. At the same time, for our product-plus family services model had been proven to be correct. It had provided us with a very good and solid basis for future development in terms of our VAB business.
In the future, we believe that this customer-centric household customer for our household customers is going to have long and significant further development. As we cover our households, we also have to provide safety. Now, the safety-related is only 42% for our customer coverage, which means that we have still a huge space for further development. Chairman Wang had mentioned just now, in the households in China, more and more, they have needs for health and safety and also purchasing and travel. This is not satisfied. They're not completely happy with those services. We need to use intelligence so that in their decision-making and their experience, they will have good and satisfying service. Here, we are using an elevated level of intelligence to serve them.
At the same time, as the population ages in China and also as the population requires more quality for some of the old-age service and also charging service for EV, all these provide us with huge opportunities for further development. So how do we serve our customers better? Peter, it is through intelligence, through the adoption of platform operation model, leveraging IoT and intelligence to engage with our customers, to build ecosystems, and also to meet multiple demands. So that is to say, using the family, the household as a core to identify their needs, understand them, and then leverage our intelligence platform to serve them. For the families, for their safety, alerts, for example, we can transfer this information through our system to our platform. That is even before there is any incident. Our service is already there to resolve the issues.
And also for our aging, travel, their health, monitoring, etc., as these people, they face these very varied and diversified services. They are lost, these older consumers. So we are using more effective and user-friendly products and services for them. And at the core of this is intelligence, intelligent and innovative products and services. Through this model, we will be able to allow our customers to have higher quality of life and also a better service. So we will continue to promote our quality upgrade of value-added business through intelligence, ecology, and platformization. We already have a number of products for our customers, including quality product manufacturing and also intelligent health home delivery service, intelligent quality shopping and safety, etc. So we will continue to build on this platform. And in 2024, our guidance is as follows.
For IE sales volume in 2024, there will be 20%-30% growth. For VAB gross profit, there will be 20%-30% growth. Retail gas sales volume will be over 5%. Chairman Wang had already mentioned we will be growing the scale of our retail gas sales. And the retail gas sales business gross profit will be over 10%. For new CI development, it will be per day 12-14 million. New residential development, 1.4-1.6 million. And our CapEx is approximately CNY 8 billion. Core profit will be increased by about 10%. So with the management and with all you investors' support, 2024 will be an even better year. Thank you very much for the presentation. Now, we will go into the Q&A. So for those who are online, you can use the online platform to input your questions by text.
Before you raise your question, would you please introduce yourself, your name, and institution or organization, limiting to two questions each? Thank you. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you, management. Chairman had mentioned just now that the market in the future will be even better. So what is your expectation for our gas business and for the three major petroleum companies and LNG competition? In the future, the competition from these sources will be even more fierce. Now, for our concession monopolistic concession business, how do you see that? Is it coming down? Second question for 2688 from A-share company. What was the contribution from the A-share company? And in the future, for 2688, for contribution from the A-share company, will it increase in the future? How much? And how do you balance the two companies' interests? For the first question, I'll answer that question.
For the second question, you will answer that. And Jianfeng will be answering that as well. So for the first question, it's an excellent question, I would say. You really understand this industry deeply. So the value of concession operation is lowering. Indeed, so. Because for concession operation at present, for the supply to the urban population, the demand is still there. And then for the IC customers, especially the major IC customers, for each province, there would be different policies. For some of them, they're using 5 million or some of them 10 million cubic meters that would qualify as major IC customer. And in these areas, we have to live up to our competitive edge. We have service competitive edge, for example. With the same cost, or same pricing, we will be providing ENN will be providing a lot more services to these customers.
In IE business, we are also providing value-addedness as well. So the customers will be considering their choice, not just on price alone, but also comprehensively, not just on natural gas supply, no longer that. But at the end, they are considering their electricity, their value-addedness, etc. So their decision on whom to go with will be on this comprehensive basis. So ENN, if we are to utilize our IE well and we are able to lower our cost for resources, I'm sure the customers would be very willing to use ENN gas, ENN service, ENN technology to resolve their own issues. The industry is getting a lot more complicated. It's so it's not just about customer demanding gas and we sell them gas. No. It is a lot more complex and comprehensive.
But as you have mentioned, concession rights, definitely, in terms of value, had come down compared to 20 years ago, 30 years ago. As for the second question, let me answer that question. From A-share company buying natural gas, in the annual report, we have in the financials, we have disclosed the connected transaction size. In 2023, it was over 400,000 cubic meters. And that would be retail plus wholesale, it would be 1% plus in terms of contribution. So for 2024, 2025, how much would that be? There is another connected transaction limit to it. In the future, for direct transaction, it will be within the connected transaction quota. So that will provide the ceiling for it. Now, for China, for the natural gas center in Shanghai, in Tianjin, in Chongqing, there is this bidding and trading.
So for these markets, in these open markets, if there is any connected transactions, any transactions happening on these open markets, it is exempted. But still, we will be disclosing them. But it would not be counted within our quota for connected transactions. So in the future, how much would it be from the Asia company? Well, that will depend on the market, what how competitive the Asia company is. So if it is competitive, we will be able to purchase more natural gas from the Asia company. So everything will be fair and open. The second question, please. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Yun. Daiwa Dennis, I have a couple of questions. First of all, it was mentioned just now, for the concession rights value, it will be lowering in terms of value.
We also have to increase the quantity and use, well, intelligence and also through IE platform provide more services to our customers. So how do we see selling of gas and also its overlap with IE platform? For example, how many % of the customers will have this kind of overlapping service and sales to them? And of course, we're not going to be just focusing on dollar margin in the future, but also focus on quantity. But how do you see dollar margin going forward? A second question concerning our CapEx. This is CNY 8 billion this year. 2023 was 7 billion pa plus. What is our direction of investment? More in IE? Would it that be? And for IE CapEx compared to gas CapEx, how does that compare, please, and to other sectors as well? CapEx. Thank you, Dennis, for the questions. Thank you for the questions.
First of all, for IE and gas overlap, I think they are in two sides. First of all, we have huge user customer base. And in this huge base, they can either use IE or gas. Gas is also part of IE, actually. So for our customers, the overlap is 60%-70% for our customers. That's the first number for you. And secondly, for the overlap, you're thinking maybe there is an internal competition. Well, I would say the two of them are not mutually competitive because all our IE business come from the end demand of our customers. As Mr. Wang had mentioned, they need electricity, and they need other quality products and services. And that is a basis of our IE business. And for our microgrid, using electricity as the core for further development, we will be developing our non-service areas as well.
In the next two years, after two years, you probably will see some concession rights value decrease. But at the same time, it would also mean our competitive edge in service, in smart gas, in IE service; all this would have been enhanced. So whether it is in customer overlap or competition, I'm highly optimistic about our future development in IE business. Just now, you mentioned CapEx. The CapEx had been disclosed. And in the future, there'll be more intelligentization, for example, in customer needs understanding and also in our service provision. All these will be increased. But it will not just be in investment in IE, but definitely IE investment will be increased. But it's not just limited to that. Now, for IE and gas, there are some overlaps, but there is still 1 million industrial customers, which are IE customers, which are not gas customers.
So some of the customers are using our IE microgrid electricity, customers. For our gas, it is also developing in parallel. And at the local areas, we have already set up our gas teams as well. So these customers can also use our gas going forward. And also, for our IE business, 30 will be in IE. And, in 2025, we believe in IE, we will continue to increase our IE business. But the growth rate will be, in terms of our CapEx, in terms of our capital, it will be more efficient so that IE business will continue to grow. And it will grow at an even more efficient capital utilization rate. Just now, the Chairman had talked about future development and talked about quantity and scale growth in order to grow our profit.
Indeed, as the customers are changing with more autonomy and also with the industry change, whether it is from resources or our customers, there'll be more marketization. If we're just focusing on one single dimension, which is dollar margin, we lose our customers. We lose their loyalty. So if I can just analyze, for the households, it is government-promoted policy in 2024. It was a major window because it is bottle-to-pipeline era. And at the core of it, we have to understand our customers. And we have to have more optimized and integrated resources utilization so that we do not just chase one single dimension. That is dollar margin. And also, this year, we have added our natural gas gross margin. It will grow by more than 10%. We have disclosed this for the first time in the guidance.
So we have a consensus that we will continue to promote the healthy and stable development of our gas business. J.P. Morgan, Steven. Thank you, Steven, J.P. Morgan. A couple of questions. First question concerning our traditional business in the cities. Last year, the acquisition was about CNY 500 million. And this year, if we have CNY 3 billion in terms of capital CapEx, does it mean that we'll have less acquisitions? And also, we look at our competitors, Kunlun, for example. Every year, they have about CNY 2 billion-CNY 3 billion in terms of acquisition. And what is our thinking behind our acquisition? And also about a value-added business, VAB. The guidance is 20%-30% gross profit growth for 2024. But if customer connection lowers, then how much is from new customer for this growth gross profit, and how much is from existing customers, please?
For acquisition, Steven, it is like this. Chairman Wang had, in the opening, said that for our city gas, the growth room for growth is relatively limited. This is compared to historical growth rates. If you look at, you know, Alibaba acquisitions, it is more cautious because of our judgment about the market and our innovation. It is not just about investment, bringing on more scale. That's a first point. A second point, it is true. In the past two years, for gas acquisition, our CapEx have been lowering. In 2024, it will not be major as well unless we have some very good targets. Our acquisition policy, we will be choosing our targets. They will have to be safe. They have safety standard. Also, there can be integration and synergy with our IE business. We have the capability financially to make the acquisitions.
So that's a question about acquisitions. The third question. Thank you very much for your question. For VAB and for households, as you have mentioned, as the economy is slowing in its growth and connection is lowering, and how would that impact this part of our business? For connection lowering, for the B2B, it would be lowering. But for new growth and coverage, we have this C, B2C as well, B2B and B2C. For B2C, we'll have 30 million households. So yes, connection has negatively affected B2B. But B2C, we have been growing this year. And in the guidance, it says that for B2C, it is 1.4-1.6 million new residential development. And we will be increasing 10% in terms of coverage next year. We are confident about that. And also, for our satisfying our customer demands, we use intelligent means in order to better satisfy our customers.
The room for development there is huge. Another point is that this era has given us a lot of opportunities. For example, AI and intelligent tools for EV charging, for old-age servicing. These are areas that we are focused on. And we will be putting in investments into them as well. Overall speaking, for 2C coverage, we will continue to enhance that to offset the 2B decrease. For this year, 20%-30% VAB gross profit growth, we are confident about that. All right. On this side, this first row. Thank you very much for the opportunity, Senior Securities. I have two small questions. First of all, for concession rights distribution in this year, how many of them will be coming to term this year? And what is the impact on quantity? And also, the three petroleum companies, what is their pricing now?
And also, how do you see the cost for us going forward? First of all, on concession rights, Alibaba with 2688 , there is a Zhejiang coming to term in terms of a concession contract. But it is not impactful. It is slow. It is low. And also, there will be resolutions after negotiations with the relevant authorities. Well, whether it is myself or Yuan had mentioned that the traditional operation model cannot be persevered just like that. So we will have to shake off the existing or the old model. So the analysts and investors have mentioned the concession rights value is really lowering. And this is a result of natural gas marketization. And gradually, it will do so. Right now, it is SVC PLUS S. So source, many sources, suppliers, and many users. And in the middle there is the network, the grid.
In the future, the grid will be the nation's, will be the national governments. And you cannot break through that. And the rest of it will be up to us in terms of intelligent products and services and also providing the customized services to our customers. This is how we're going to increase our revenue and profit. This is what the new era needs. And this is the change, the essence of the transformation for us. And you can understand it this way. And that is, there will be a lot of time for us to adjust to this new model. It's not like tomorrow. It's not like 2024 or 2025. It's already here. No, we have time for this transformation. And the three petroleum companies is exactly doing the communication for the future pricing and contracts, setting the price.
I'm sure you know about the policy. There are a few characteristics to it. First of all, for the customer and pipeline, there will be integration. Also, the price peg in the past, this will be pegged to the Integrated Consumer Price Index. But there are some geographical differences as well. Every region, because of their resources, supply is different. Their residents, quantity is different. Basically, we see that our purchase is better than 2023, even though the Consumer Price Index is pegged. The oil price is pegged to that. But it is beneficial. It is positive. Also, as mentioned just now, on the basis of our domestic market, we will also be looking at international sources, where appropriate, where it is good for us. We will be optimizing our costs and also to manage well our natural gas, overall supply.
In 2024, our costs, I think, would be better at the back there. The next question, please. Thank you. HSBC, Li Ming. Two questions. For 2023, free cash flow, we see that it is lower than last year. It's CNY 2.1 billion. And this is over a 10% drop from the same period last year. Now, for dividend commitment, you are still increasing that. So how can you cover the dividend payout given your free cash flow situation? So for the dividend ratio, is there a ceiling for mid to long term? Do you see that? Second question. I would like to know, for IE, there is a 10% IRR number. This IRR number, would it include the intelligent and, as Mr. Wang had mentioned, some of the efforts that Mr. Wang had mentioned just now? First of all, on free cash flow, let me answer that question.
For free cash flow in the PPT, it shows that this is on accounting basis, purely on accounting basis. I actually do not agree to this number, even though I'm the CFO, because in that, it is not included the hedging cash, the CNY 786 million. If we include that, it is CNY 2.93 billion. So it definitely covers our dividend payout. For 2024, we project the cash flow would be over CNY 3 billion. So we will have a very good coverage for our dividends. We are highly confident. I'll answer the second question. The IRR 12% that you mentioned, does it include the intelligent factor and element? Well, the answer is affirmative, yes. So it will bring us, for IE, it is complementary in its service. So it is, source and grid and demand integrated. And for example, it is 8% return for our photovoltaic.
But with photovoltaic plus demand plus dynamic supply, it will add 1%-2% in terms of return. And for the microgrid and its interaction and trading with the macrogrid, as you know, the country is opening up the grid. And also, there is adjustment of peak and trough. And this will, with this dynamism with the macro grid, this will also increase our return. And also, through complementary and supplementary supply, this will increase our efficiency, including carbon trading markets. All these together, we think that the value would actually increase with these efforts. UBS. Ken from UBS. Thank you very much. I'm very happy to see Chairman Wang please come to Hong Kong more often to have exchanges with us. Now, concerning gas industry and its trend, now for wholesale and direct provision, it is higher in terms of growth than our city gas.
So for the next 5-10 years, how do you see this in terms of our growth? Do you think there is already a structural change? It's not city gas, but rather wholesale and direct supply would be growing faster. Competition, of course, will be there. Some of them will be. Competitors will be going for wholesale as well. So apart from that, does it mean that because of China's economy's restructuring, and therefore there is more direct supply in wholesale? And secondly, about expanding overseas, I know Chairman Wang is also investing overseas. And we see overseas companies. When they see the domestic situation, they also are investing overseas. And they're doing very well. I would like to know from you, Chairman Wang, what do you think about the future? Will it be on the 803 listed company or 2688? I'll answer the first question.
You guys will answer the second question. Thank you, Kevin's invitation. But you have to understand, I'm over 60 years old. It's not feasible for me to be running around all the time. But my colleagues here will be doing so. For your question, I would say that I want to clarify that for overseas business, this is not the best time for investment, even though you see a lot of domestic companies are developing overseas. But they have different targets, each have their different reasons, and each are in different industry. For us, it is not the best time to invest overseas for us. Also, we have some capital, for example, in AI and for supply chain related to intelligence, then through the capital markets. But this is definitely not 2688 or 803 platforms.
So for overseas expansion, overall speaking, we are just observing. We are being stable. So we will be investing in industries which are in line with this megatrend of intelligence, that, that only. Your questions are well asked from the country's point of view, as Mr. Wang had pointed out just now. Last year, with the 400 billion and to the target of 600 billion cubic meters, there is still a lot of room. We believe that, that for wholesale and direct sale, and there will this will grow. Also, in big industry and city gas, the rate of growth will be more or less the same. Also, in the past few years, power industry had also increased significantly. For the long term, I think city gas will still be one of the major increases for the sector, one of the major drivers for the sector.
So because of time, the last question, please. Last question on site. Morgan Stanley, Albert, I have two questions. First of all, can you share with us the LNG price being low and how this has impacted you, for example, in purchasing LNG, the big industry, and the dollar margin lowering risk from them, and also overseas sourcing LNG? Can you talk about the overall LNG scenario? A second question concerning the IE business. Long-term profitability, how do you balance profitability and growth in 2023? We see that the gross margin, profit margin had lowered. So how do you see the mid to long term in terms of profit growth? LNG price, you can see from last year's CNY 35 to this year's CNY 810, I think it is coming back to a normal track. That's how I see it.
It will provide a very good supplement to domestic resources because it is affected by uncertainties in fluctuations in supply and pricing. So this will be a very good supplement. For us, for our company, and with our understanding of the customers and our delivery and our grasp of the seasonal cycles, it will benefit us. Domestically, we will be for our long-term resources, we will be focusing it on our domestic market. For IE business in the mid to long term, for our IE investment, we have over about 12% IRR. That's per investment item. But the gross margin would be different at disclosure. That is because the projects come in at different times in the year. Therefore, the gross profit margin is affected. It's 15% in terms of guidance. Last year, it was some 16%.
It's now 13% because of these structural and timing issues. For the over 18 months projects, it is 15% IRR. I can tell you that. The newest, of course, have its fluctuations. Just mentioned, we're using intelligent means. Also, with our IE standardization and platform standardization in the future, our IE profits will be even more long term and even more stable. Now, online questions. Huaneng Guicheng Trust, Zhu Jian Xiang. In the next few years, IE business, will it lower in terms of growth? And what in terms of growth rate, is it 20%? And then other one is the ASP of IE. It has come down significantly. How do you see the trend going forward for ASP? So let me answer the first part of the question.
For our IE business and also for our household business, we are confident we will be able to provide 20%-30% in terms of gross profit for IE sales and also VAB. For ASP for IE decrease, there it is a couple of reasons. First of all, there are some structural adjustments. For example, for some of our projects, it is coming ramping up to full capacity operation. Further, for our price, our end price, I think it will come down for IE, given the construction costs, etc. That is also coming down as well. For our IE gross profit and development, apart from raising our intelligence to excavate the value, that's a first growth point. Secondly, through our large-scale development, through lowering of costs therefrom, and especially from a marginal cost lowering, that will bring on further benefits.
In the past, for example, we had 3-6 people to manage an IE station. But with intelligence, it is one person managing three stations. So that is 6 times or 9 times in terms of true staff optimization. And also, with tariff marketization, everything I mean, the pricing will be on market demand and supply basis. And I also believe that as our scale continues to grow for IE business, we will be able to reach the targets. We are highly confident about the sales volume increase and also returns contribution. Now, in 2023, first half household, it is 1.13 billion first half. And second half is 1.38 billion. So the increase is 22%. And so for household business, we can use this as a projection. We are highly confident.
For quality and safety and value added, I think there's 20%-30% growth in value added business for household. We are highly confident. Last question. China Merchants So Min Yuan. What is the pass-on price pass-on for our concession rights? And what is it going forward? And in 2024, what is the industrial gas? Do you have any guidance on industrial gas volume for 2024? For price transfer, in the past year, there was 50%. This is for IC customers, over 50%, no problem. And this year is good in terms of outlook because, you know, that the country is going for marketization in big ways. So for this year, I think we will be able to also achieve our household price transfer. Second question. Gas for industrial is lowering, decreasing. How do you see the future? And do you have any guidance for 2024?
For 2023, our industrial gas, as you know, and we have exchanges before as well, because of the power generators, they are major customers. Last year, there have been a lot of pipelines opened. And they have therefore more supplier choice. Then last year, with our concern and flexibility for our customers, it was not finessed yet. In the second half, we have put in a lot of efforts in understanding our major clients. And so our industrial volume in the past few months had been growing back on track. And we will continue to grow that. That's the first point. For our gas volume in the different sectors, overall speaking, it is over 5%. This is because we understand our customers, their characteristics, and development. So that's the situation. Now, because of time, we will have to close the conference here.
Thank you again for your support over the long time for our company. Thank you for your participation and attendance. If you have any questions, please approach our team.