Investors, analysts good evening to you. Well, welcome to the ENN Interim Results Announcement 2022. I'm Liu Min, the person in charge for IR and convener for ESG Empowerment. I would like to introduce to you the management on the stage today. First of all, we have Mr. Zheng Hongtao, the Executive Director and Vice Chairman. We have Ms. Wu Xiaojing, Executive Director and President, and Mr. Wang Dongzhi, the CFO, and Ms. Ma Nini, Financial Controller. 2022 first half had been very challenging in face of challenges from energy prices, global COVID situation and geopolitical uncertainty. With the leadership of the board and the great efforts of the management and all staff, ENN had nevertheless been able to record a very encouraging first half results. Next, we will have the CFO, Mr. Wang Dongzhi, to talk to you about the first half of the company.
Thank you very much. Thank you, analysts, shareholders for attending the ENN first half 2022 results announcement. Reviewing the first half of 2022, the environment had been complex, with international energy market in a shortfall and also with the insufficient supply of natural gas in domestic market, there had been a rise in pricing. Also with the complex situation, including economic transformation and also the consumption of energy slowing down, we have received the following results. First of all, there had been for IE the sales increase of 34.2% to 10,801,000 kWh. Revenue compared to the same period was increase of 46.5% to $5.365 billion.
Natural gas sales increased 5.1% to 13 billion cubic meters, and newly increased I&C was 9.48 million cubic meters, and households increased by 970,000 for the first half. New projects included 29 projects. The gross profit from value added business was a growth of 33.3%. Core profits increased 10.9% and free cash flow was CNY 689 million. We were able to record a good performance and the interim dividend is 0.64 HKD. Next, turning to ESG for the company. We continue to participate in the green action plan and also for the country's methane control and carbon emissions mitigation efforts. The company is committed to the lowering of methane emissions and also GHG MGP plans.
At the same time, we have participated in the research and also the implementation of cutting down on methane emissions. In terms of carbon emissions, the company has continued to participate in the efforts through 15 areas, including greenhouse gas emissions. We have come up with an upstream natural gas purchasing, midstream transportation, and downstream sales, four areas of survey and also examination, so as to use different models and also tools in order to forecast our carbon emissions and also to lower carbon emissions. Thirdly, in face of city gas safety situation, we strongly believe that safety is the most important thing that we have to maintain and we are fully in support of the government in strengthened safety monitoring. We have also completed a series of government-instigated safety measures and also tests.
In the first half of the year, we have altogether nine tests that were done on site by the government for safety. At the same time, concerning gas safety, we have used various laser equipment, laser roaming inspection cars and also gas leak detection methods, et cetera. Including in the rural areas, we have increased our detection rate and also our accuracy, including using work dogs as well as focusing on concentrated population areas. For daily safety governance, the company had continued to raise the level of this. In the first half of the year, we have completed 102 corporations evaluation of safety. We have over 42 corporations, we have already completed the ISO recognition with 5,000+ emergency drills. 210,000 staff members have already been given safety training.
Fourth, in terms of our safety requirement, the company has further used AI technology, IoT projects, pipeline station, and in house. In these five scenarios, we have put in digitalized operations. It is over 1,200 digitalized safety standards. In the first half, we have 33 enterprises which have gone online for these standards and this covers more than half of our gas clients. We will continue to strive towards basic safety, core safety, and social safety. Further, for our overall business, there had been IE significant growth in the first half. We have new projects of 27, reaching a total of 177 projects for IE and under construction is 40. We have a very good basis for future growth.
For energy sales, it is an increase of 34.2% to 10.8 billion kWh. The income or revenue increase was 46.7%, reaching $5.365 billion. Gross profit increased 16.7% to $0.698 billion, and gross margin was 13%. We continue to increase the diversified products, and we can believe that the gross margin will return to 15%-20% in the long term for IE. For low carbon service scenarios, the company continues to develop new customers and also to use different low carbon technology. In the parks, we had 14 new parks signed with over 1 billion kWh in terms of usage.
In particular for Guangdong, Guangzhou, Huangpu, these new parks, they are the first tier city parks, and we have continued to work with these customers. For newly signed, there are low-carbon factories, 456, with a usage of 6.9 billion kWh. Some of the projects include Xiamen, Kaishan and some major factories and also manufacturing bases. For city low carbon architecture and buildings, this is another important scenario for us. We have signed new 46 of such buildings with a size of 0.23 billion kWh. These include some of the major government offices as well in Anhui, Bengbu, et cetera. Photovoltaic continues to be an important part of our business. We have already completed 584 megawatts of capacity, and we have also connected onto the grid 226 units.
These are in a number of areas, including in Fujian. The photovoltaic has an IRR of some 8%. For the green energy and IE projects, the overall IRR is over 12%. IE is the core of our business, and it brings on new demands from the customers. We will be close to our customers so that we have a deep integration and deepening of the product service provision and value proposition for our customers. We will continue to work on the new areas, including the Anhui Province, Xuancheng new area. We will continue to put in new boilers and also photovoltaic and storage facilities. This is a project with an increase in revenue of 49% with an IRR increase of 2.27%.
There is the Henan Province KELON New Energy, which is a low carbon factory project. The realized revenue is an increase of 122% and IRR had been significantly increased by 13%. For natural gas sales, because of very complex industry situation and economic situation, the residential volume had continued to increase, but I&C industry and commerce had lowered because of COVID outbreaks in various places. Total gas sales had increased 5.1% to 13.065 billion cubic meters. I&C increased 5% to 10 billion. LNG prices significantly increased and the pass through in certain places and areas had been delayed. The company overall dollar margin is RMB 0.50, which is a drop of six mao or 0.6 RMB, which is still an increase from the same period of last year.
Because of the dollar margin effect, natural gas retail revenue had dropped 6.3% to $3.158 billion. In the face of the rising international LNG price and the very complex situation in the domestic market, the company continues to have a number of strategies. For example, it will continue to stabilize the supply from the three big suppliers, and this is an advantage and competitive edge for the company. The company continues to use non-conventional gas sources, and it is 3 million units in terms of adjustment from getting gas sources from these unconventional sources. As well, the company steps up with storage and terminal building, and it has built over 0.56 billion cubic meters of consolidated storage capability.
The company has pegged, there are some long term LNG contracts that are pegged to the oil price and they are definitely directly providing value to the company for these long-term contracts. As well in the first half of the year, together with Energy Transfer, we have signed a annual supply of 900,000 tons over 20 years using the HH pricing. For installation, project installation, we continue to increase this because of the replacement of coal burning and high carbon emission and high consumption governance. The company continues to develop our I&C customers and new customers include and volume is 9.48 million cubic meters per day. For newly built housing, it is increasing by 77%.
In the first half of the year, new residential was 997,000 units for residential and for, we have increased the new, households ratio to 82%. In face of the situation for the LNG markets and also the gas markets and also with the new site pipeline, the core pipeline building in the domestic markets, we will continue to focus on some of the strategic projects. We will continue to extend our areas and geographical coverage of our operation. We have 27 new projects for the first half, and they are in Shandong, Jiangsu, Fujian and also the coastal regions. For value-added business, we continue to deepen our understanding of the households so as to bring them diversified products.
The penetration had increased by 29.6% and 9% respectively for new customers and existing customers. The value added revenue per single household has increased to 77 RMB from 69, and the first half VAB business recorded a net profit of $873 million, which is up 33% from last year. We continue to promote metal pipelines and also alarms and warnings, automatic valves, et cetera. All these are safety measures which continue to increase for the first half of our revenue. For low carbon households, we continue to provide stoves and also dehumidifiers and green construction materials and low carbon heating products. Over the first half, we were able to increase our revenue by 50% from these sources. For smart households, we have LoRa and NB-IoT. These are...
smart products. The sales have been very encouraging, and we will continue to build on these bases. For value-added services and also for the projects, the company continues to invest in Hangzhou, Xiaoshan and other small communities, we continue to serve the household ecology, including providing safety measures and equipment. That is contributing close to CNY 200 thousand for revenue. Here is the results for the company. The IE for the first half there had been a 41.5% increase in revenue for the first half of 2022. It was CNY 58,332 million. For EBITDA, it is CNY 7,004 million.
For the first half, it was RMB 6,894 million in terms of gross profit with EBITDA of RMB 7,401 million respectively, and decrease of 2.1% and increase of 3.8%. Our core EPS is an increase of 10.9% to 3.65 for the first half of 2022. For receivables, it is less than $500 million. For our gearing, it is slightly up. It has decreased from 26.6% to 24% for our gearing. As we continue to develop steadily, it has driven our operating cash flow. In the first half, it was RMB 4.226 billion, and free cash flow was RMB 0.689 billion.
For CapEx, we continue to control CapEx, and it was RMB 3.342 billion. For pipeline, it was an investment of RMB 2.6 billion. For IE investment was RMB 0.53 billion, and new projects was RMB 0.21 billion. The company continues to have a very strong financial basis, and it has very strong cash flow. We have cash on hand of RMB 11.57 billion, and we have undrawn credit facilities of close to RMB 20 billion. As the international interest rates environment continue to rise as the Fed increases interest rates, we were able to nevertheless grasp the May opportunity to issue a $550 million green bond, which has greatly optimized the company's credit and liability structure.
As for rating, we are upward adjusted to BBB+, creating a very good S&P rating and also a very good foundation for our future financing. That has been the situation. We continue to face up to the changeable situations, and we will continue to try our best to bring you the best value. Next, we have the president, Ms. Wu, speaking. Thank you very much. Next, I will be talking about the second half of the year. First of all, I would want to talk about the challenges of the company that we have faced. First of all, at present, there are economic changes and also great changes in the industry as well as technological advancement and global rebalancing.
The first half had been therefore challenging, but on the other hand, we have five areas that we would want to note. First of all, the macroeconomic situation had already gone to bottom, which means that it is gradually recovering. Energy usage and demand is slowly returning, and at the same time, with more focused control of the epidemic, the impact on the economy is weakening. One can say that for the second half, the basic economy will be turning positive. On the customer demand side, I&C customers will face relatively harsh operation pressure. Policies for the two carbons are going to be closely complemented. Carbon tariff is in place, and it is rising for European countries and customers have heightened need to lower costs and conserve energy and reduce carbon.
With this as a background, we believe that for the second half of the year, the market volatility will increase. There will be challenges as a result for our acquisition of customers and also for setting the price. This will present some challenges to our increase in volume and customer acquisition and security of resources supply. With more stringent industry regulation on the other hand, the country and the society at large will have higher focus on gas safety. Transitioning from passive safety to proactive safety is a sure trend. At the same time, with these changes and also with the complex carbon market, we believe that in the future for operation and also matching will be important. Mr. Wang, our chairman, said that there will be two types of companies which will be successful in the future.
One type are those that produce technology, the other is a type of companies which use technology to produce. Next, let us talk about the development. Some of the thoughts on development would be in face of the changeable situation, we grasp opportunities to, in the second half of the year, focus on three areas. First of all efforts will be put to building safety base, baseline to increase the smart safety and enhance specified governance and to increase staff safety capabilities. We will be innovative and in order to be very close to our customer. We will provide diversified channels to meet their needs, and at the same time, we will be strengthening our IE capabilities and to increase our VAB, value added business.
At the same time, we will be going to deepen our digitalization, to use digitalization to release our customer value and to provide high quality development and service. Through these measures, we will be able to have sustainable development for our company. Next, I will be talking about our customers and also in particular our using smart technology and also our gas business. First of all, for the customers, we will be having clearer profiling of our customers so that we are able to provide peak adjustment, discount expansion on order service to provide individualized services to our customers. Also to provide menus and packages for natural gas that are really fitting to the needs of our customers. We will achieve innovative pricing model and joint mechanism for pricing as well. This is for natural gas.
Secondly, for resource side, we will continue to get the most supply from the three big suppliers. At the same time, we will be using non conventional resources as well as using storage capability, so as to maximize our source of gas and oil. At the same time, we will be using our the pipeline connectivity to provide flexibility of resources and to leverage on the national pipeline product usage. Thirdly, smart and digitalization. We will continue to increase the smart and digitalization so as to provide accurate and focused matched service. Fourthly, we will continue to strengthen our Integrated Energy business through optimizing our existing volume and also increasing new volume. We will be increasing our volume and also be able to extract the value for our projects.
We will be working with low carbon transport, low carbon buildings, low-carbon industrial parks, and low carbon projects. We will continue to increase and diversify our products, including in a number of areas, boilers, etcetera, and also the matched sales of electricity, PV and biomass, etcetera, so that we are able to achieve a low carbon system. We will also use technology so that we continue to grow our IE business. Fifthly, for VAB, value added business, this is another area where we'll be putting in a lot of efforts. We will be focused on the family in building pipeline, new products, and also providing smart products for the customers so as to provide value added products and services for the customers.
We will be using IoT, using the platform and to build our ecology and to provide the four main products. First of all, the smart home with energy facilities and optimization of energy usage, and also the low carbon home, which is to provide products and also services which are of low-carbon nature. The safe home, which is for safe usage of gas and with products and also services. Lastly, the smart home, which is about home management through smart means, and also this will include healthcare, purchasing domestic services and traveling. We continue to optimize our online, offline, omni channel and also to strengthen the products and at the same time increase our omni-channel touchpoints with our customers. For our...
From 12%- 15%, we will continue to work well, and the guidance for the future will be that we will be adjusting some of the numbers. In particular, we will be for our core profits, the growth will be 12%-15%. This is new. We will have the Q&A next. Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, we will have the Q&A session. Would you please press star one on the telephone to ask your questions.
Ladies and gentlemen, if you'd like to register for question, please press star one on your telephone. Thank you.
The first question from Dennis Ip of Daiwa.
Thank you, management. I have a couple of questions to ask. Can you hear me? About our connection for residents.
In the first half of the year, we already see that it is slowing down. I would like to know this 2.4 million households, what is your projection? How many percent would be from new properties, how many from rural transfer from coal, and how many from urban areas? Because we can see that for property development, there are certain problems in the sense that this 2.4 million households. My question is, how confident are you about 2.4 million, and what is the breakdown? The second question is that revenue is up 47%, but our profit is only up 17%. How do you see the future in terms of growth profit margin? A third question about it is about the guidance, the 12%-15%.
Is it because for certain gas source, we are going to use LNG? For LNG related revenue in the second half, do you have a guidance as to what the LNG related revenue would be for the second half? Fourthly, for the joint venture for this first half, there was a loss of. Then there was a profit. Can you talk to us more about the joint venture, please? Yeah, there are four questions there.
Dennis, thank you for your question. First of all, for your questions, I will answer most of them. As for the LNG, someone else will answer the question. Now, first of all, for household connection, 2.4 million, yes.
For the first half, we have already completed connection to the tune of 1 million, and in the second half, it will increase. That was the same situation last year. As for the structure of business, 7.8% will come from new customers, 10% from existing, and 10% from rural transferring from coal. That is our expectation. As for new households, the risk in the presentation, I have mentioned that, yes, we are cognizant of that risk. There for the second half, we are very confident about the connectivity to the households, and they are based on very real property numbers.
For the first half of the year, whether it is for, commodities and electricity and LNG, they have all increased and therefore the gross profit had decreased. The guidance for gross margin is 12%-15%. It was 16%-18% before. But the long term indication is 15%-20%. This is long term healthy. Right now, the guidance is less than 15%, but we will continue to increase our IE high value added and high profit businesses. We hope to be returning to 15% or over soon. For gas volume, it is 5%-8%, which had been downward adjusted from 12%. For our JV loss, yes, it had happened. It is some big JVs at the beginning of the year.
They have fallen short of the target, and therefore there were these losses. These should be incident based, they are one off and they should not be a consistent situation. The management is confident that in the second half, the winter will turn around these JV's operation situation. Thank you. The next question, please. Thank you.
Citi, Pierre. Good performance for the first half. I have a couple of questions to ask. First of all, for PV. How does it impact our IRR? Let's say, how do you see IRR for PV and also for IE? And also for VAB business, the growth had been good and the growth profit had increased 33%. For the first half, there was outbreaks of COVID in a number of areas, and it's difficult to serve households. Why is it that for VAB, it had still recorded such growth?
What is the component of such growth? What are the services, for instance? The third question is the guidance for the year. The guidance had not changed, the revenue increased. I see, however, that there is a retail gas sales volume. It has been downward revised, but not for some of the other revenue. My question is, how come profits can still stay as predicted as in the guidance, but retail sales volume at the same time where you have revised down. Why are you able to achieve that?
All right. We'll answer this question. Yes, Pierre, thank you for the questions. Thank you for your long-term care and concern. For PV, there are two levels to PV. First of all, for photovoltaic PV, it is part of the sector of IE, and it's not just about PV.
It is part of our IE. It overlaps with IE business. It is integrated with trading of electricity and sales of electricity business. The IRR is about 8% for CapEx, but we have other integrated services, extra services, and with that, the IRR becomes 12%. This is to use our existing customer base and also to bring in PV. Now, as for VAB growth, it is true, there are two areas making it very profitable for the first half, even though there was COVID situation. Our VAB had increased because for the first half, there were a lot of products and also services which were not tried before or not given sufficient efforts in the first half. For these products, we extended a promotion of them, so the sales have been good.
In the PPT, it has grown 100% for some of the VAP property, in particular in safety. Under the COVID situation, the households actually have higher demand for safety, and VAB had been selling well. Also with digitalized methods, including using WeChat accounts and also with other marketing methods, we have increased our sales. Third, our core profits guidance, it is over 12%. First half was close to 11%. Second half, we will continue to put in all efforts to develop all businesses to attain our core profit. It will not be easy, and natural gas price is high. For our retail gas sales volume, we have revised that down. For IE and dollar margin and the pass through of our higher cost, we are confident with these measures we are able to achieve our guidance.
Thank you very much. When you ask your questions, would you stay close to the microphone so that we can hear you more clearly?
Lawrence of BOCI, please.
Thank you. I have a few questions to ask. First of all, page 10 of the PPT, you talk about gas source. In the pie chart, you have the 94% and 6% next to the pie chart. How do you understand that? And secondly, what about the structure for the IE? And basically, in your guidance, the guidance is 5%-8% for retail, and this is somewhat adjusted. Why is that? And the dollar margin, what is your reason behind your dollar margin projections?
Now, first of all, for gas source, Ms. Cheung will answer that question. For dollar margin, we'll answer that question afterwards.
Thank you, Lawrence, for your support for the company. Your first question, gas source. For contract size, because we signed a contract, in various times, it has changed. For our whole year gas source, 94% through pipeline gas it had been achieved. For the non-contract part, we have some distribution projects that have been done through LNG. For these contracts, the pricing is changeable, and the volume also fluctuates according to the market. That is the reason.
As for your second question, I did not hear you clearly. What was it? From the company's point of view for the second half, our contract size will continue to grow because of our measures and we have more nonconventional gas sources. Also our projection of the demand of the market will be more accurate.
Second half, our non contract source will increase for the second half. I'll answer the third question on dollar margin. We can see for dollar margin compared to the same period of last year, it was six fen less, and it is because of one, residential households increased 5% last year, and half of them had not been given the pass-through. It is because last year, COVID outbreak was frequent, and therefore it was difficult to pass through the to effect the pass-through. The government had different considerations. Now, with COVID dying down, there will be space for so doing. Also, for the I&C, some of the households are given concessions. There is a margin of three mao.
In the second half, we will be looking at some of the concessions given to C&I, so there is space again. Also our customer structure, yes, it is changing. There are some major customers, when they first start, we will provide them with certain discounts and concessions. For dollar margin, it has changed and 0.5 CNY of dollar margin, we find it to be reasonable. It has actually come back down to 0.53 CNY or 0.54 CNY dollar margin for the second quarter. For the second half, we think it is going to be above 0.5 CNY, 0.5 CNY. We are optimistic. All right, the next question please. Thank you. JP Morgan, Steven Chen. Greetings. I have three questions to ask.
The first question, in July and August, what is the gas sale situation? In Zhejiang, et cetera, there are some new projects. How does that affect us? Second question, for LNG, there is a high return. I would like to know, for the second half, what is the compared to the first half, what is it like for LNG? And secondly, for growth margin from connection, it has dropped by 30%, over 30%. Why is that, please? And also, what is the whole year projection for the growth margin? Mr. Liu will answer these three questions. For July and August, our retail sales for gas is in single digit number growth. For LNG, we have not been affected much. In particular, for power shortage in China, it is in Qinghai, Sichuan.
It is because of droughts that there had been power shortage. Maybe, in Sichuan, it is not so pronounced, so the power outage is not that much of an impact on us. For our contracts, basically, they are long term plans. They start from 2016, and they are to serve our own needs. There would, of course, be certain fluctuations in the domestic market and internationally. For example, we saw last year it was higher than the spot price, a long term price, and higher than the pipeline price. This year, because of geopolitical conflict, we actually see some very rare movements. HH, for example, are hitting new highs or the annual high.
Under this situation, for LNG, we continue our long contract policy so as to protect our own source and to optimize on our source. This will not change. This is about LNG contracts and trade. About our gross margin, yes, it is, the drop is higher than our sales drop. There are two reasons. One, in our connection fees for households where the margin is higher, it has dropped. In the first half of the year, for C and I connection, it is 9 million cubic meters, which is more or less the same as last year. Households has dropped, and therefore the gross margin had dropped. Secondly, for households connection, there has been some drops because of the COVID restrictions. Also costs had also increased.
Our teams and our they have to be deployed into certain sites and also purchasing of materials, et cetera, logistics and also the prices have increased because of COVID restrictions. That is the reason why for our gross margin. For this year, we think that it will be eased because the COVID situation will be eased. The works that we will be normalized, transport will be normalized, logistics will be normalized, and we'll be back to the historic average, we believe, for the second half as we move forward. Next question. CICC, Li Tongyi . Thank you very much for achieving the good results in the first half. I have a small question to ask. For the first half, we see for Integrated Energy, what is your plans for the future? What is your projection for the future?
For PV installation, is there any adjustment for the whole year? Also gross margin, there has been some drop in the gross margin. Why is there a drop, please? For the first two questions, Ms. Wu will answer the question. Ms. Wu, please. The first question is on Integrated Energy, i.e. The structure for most of our revenue, it is in heat and in heating and heat. For this year, for the team, we have in particular for some of the products, it. For electricity, the product of electricity and cooling had increased. The, for the products, it is from 20 products or over. Just from heat and heating, it's become cooling and services and electricity as well and also digitalization, digitalized service. There will be more industrial parks and also factories.
Factories, revenue from factories will be even higher with diversified needs. Yes, we believe for C&I, there will be a lot of role for Integrated Energy going forward. The structure will be even further optimized with more diversified products. Renewable is also a new addition. The second question is about PV. Is that right? Photovoltaic. There is no major change for installed capacity. It is 600 megawatts. Basically, PV is just part of IE. There's no major change in our planning for PV. All right. For our, there is a 33% increase for our profits. With the gross margin of 78% last year, there is a small decrease, and this is because of our sales structure. For low-carbon and heating products, we have provided more products.
This is the gross margin that is slightly lower than our service gross margin. Our gross margin from service is about 80%. It is because of our product structure, there is a change in our gross margin. Overall, the margin is on the increase, although gross profit is on the increase. I have three questions. First of all, for CapEx, it has increased by 18%. How much is it related to safety measures? Secondly, for LNG trade, the CNY 1 billion revenue, can you give us some details whether the second half you are able to be consistent with this? Will you have this revenue? And also for heating, the west to east heating transfer, what do you see as indicative price, please? All right.
First of all, concerning your gas CapEx, it is increased by CNY 400 million, same period of last year. CNY 200 million is allocated to the replacement of old pipe network, and the rest of it is normal CapEx for investment into pipes, et cetera, and also opening up new resources, coming up to new resources. Therefore, we have extended our pipeline and also strengthened our pipeline, which is normal. Thank you for the questions. As in my previous answer, for our ENN LNG long contract, it is to satisfy the domestic LNG natural gas need. In satisfying that natural gas need in the first half of the year because of COVID and economic impacts, there were certain times, certain periods of time where there were changes.
Looking into the demands from the suppliers from the international market, we have made some trade arrangements. In the second half of the year, we will still want to satisfy domestic needs first as a priority. According to the economic and COVID situation, we will be making adjustments accordingly. Second or third question about the gas price in the winter. Gas price in the winter, even though it will be affected by the international market, but the domestic market, because it is a socialist economy, overall speaking, for gas price in the winter, there may be some adjustment, but it will not be a big adjustment. Also we are confident that our dollar margin will still hold. Thank you, Mr. Tang. Next, we will have some web questions. The first question from Morgan Stanley, Simon Lee.
Can you please explain your core profits? The fair value loss of CNY 136 million, can you give us some information, please? The guidance for core profits increase of 12%-15%, how do you propose to achieve that? Mr. Liu, please. Thank you, Simon, for the questions. First of all, for our core profits, I will not go into the details of our definition. In fact, it is already in our announcement. It is technical and it is detailed. For the core profit, it is from our core business. The second question, that is the core profit and the how are we able to achieve the 12%-15%. In fact, that has already been asked, that question.
Well, again, it is through gas, retail, even though retail gas sales volume had dropped, but our dollar margin is the same. Dollar margin, we are setting it at CNY 0.05, but in fact, it can be higher than that. Also, our IE business is growing rapidly, and VAB is also growing rapidly. All these should be able to contribute significantly to our core profits, reaching 12%-15% increase. LNG first half trade, how much was it? What about the second half? That was the question. Thank you. It is like this. For LNG trade, as I have mentioned earlier, it is to satisfy the domestic market first, and then according to the suppliers and the international market, we consider the LNG trade this way.
I cannot give you specifics as to what the second half will be, price would be like, specifically. Morningstar. Will installation price, fees be increased, and, will that impact the business? For projects, gross revenue, it had been affected by certain costs, including installation costs. That is because of COVID. After COVID, this will be improved. But for some of the regulations on, fees, it may be further regulated. But basically, for gross margin from installation, it is smaller and smaller contribution. But rather, we have the new businesses, value added business, IE business and our LNG trade. All these are the major contributions. Installations and projects, installations are less and less in contribution.
Through purchasing and through adjustments in our arrangements, we will continue to be steadfast in installation revenue. Can you talk about LNG trading for the second half? Yes, Ms. Jiang, would you want to answer the question? Yes. Now, this is after the fact. The accounting of financial arrangement is after the fact, not before the fact. Because of time, we will have to close the Q&A session here. Thank you very much for your participation and thank you for your support to our company. The interim results announcements is ended now. If you have any further questions, you're welcome to contact our team and we thank the management.