The big call conference call on the trading update that was released on sales last night. If we could just really set a few house rules. The purpose of the trading update is really to describe the contents of what was released. So can we confirm the subject to that, please? We are in a close period, and we will remain safe till we release our results.
And the reason really, I guess, for today is to make sure that we can provide good rationale reasons for us having to delay our results and give you more color on the trading performance of the business. So there will be another opportunity to answer questions. If you can use the e mail or the written link on the webinar system, and we'll answer those questions as best we can. So on that note, I'd like to hand over to Bernard. Bernard, over to you.
Thanks, David, and good morning, good afternoon, everybody. Apologies for the haircut, but I hope we've been locked down in Sydney for the last 6 weeks and we'll certainly not be locked down for the next 6 weeks. So yes, I think we're not out of this COVID issue yet, but so be it. I think that's just something we've got to get used to going forward. So I'd like to just talk about the trading statement and update that we have in the market.
I think there's some fantastic achievements in that, some amazing prospects. And also one of the bits of bad news that we did feel the necessity to inform the market about, and we need to keep these all in perspective. So we give you guidance as to where we expect that to come out for the year, which is above the prior year. And let's remember that the year ended June 2020 had 3.5 months of COVID impact in it, whereas this year has been a full 12 month COVID impacted year. So I think for us to have an increase in profitability and a full COVID impacted year is a credit to the amazing work that our teams around the world have put in.
I don't want to spend too much time talking about the year that was because it's actually an impossibility. There were so many moving parts in every different geography of openings, of shutdowns, of good summers, of terrible winters, of reopenings, of some geographies sailing through the year with very minimal impact. And all of that is what it is and it will just result in the numbers at the end of the day. And the numbers are the numbers, which I think are true testament to the fantastic work that has been put in by the team. Because let's not make any mistake about it.
Our customers are amongst the hardest hit by this pandemic around the world. If you look at the hospitality industry, restaurants, hotels, travel, cruise ships, leisure, office catering, almost every single segment we're in has been impacted severely. And even those segments that weren't impacted that were apparently not impacted were impacted as well. Healthcare absolutely was impacted and continues to be where you've got only COVID activities going on in many hospitals and none of the regular elective part surgery and regular part of it. In aged care, of course, the business is contingent.
But as we've said before, a lot of the discretionary spend in those segments has just gone. There weren't any Christmas parties. There weren't any Easter parties, whatever else it might be. So all of that has been scaled back significantly. So overall, we're absolutely impressed with the results that our teams around the world have put in.
And all of them have a story and more of them have a different story, and we look forward to going through that with you in detail in due course. I think the other absolutely amazing outcome of these results is our net debt. Our non IFRS 16 debt, our true debt, has reduced from ZAR5.6 billion at the end of June 2020 to ZAR503 1,000,000 at the end of June 2021. And to put that in perspective, our market cap is somewhere around ZAR 100,000,000 to ZAR 110,000,000. So yes, to have net debt of almost nothing, I think, is a phenomenal achievement.
And that's been driven by incredibly strong free cash flow generation and fantastic working capital management. In very difficult circumstances, our teams have done an awesome job managing inventories and managing a debtors book that could have been very ugly, in fact, have been exceptionally well managed and looks very good. As we alluded to and we said previously, it won't be the intention of the Board to pay dividends when it's prudent and correct to do so. And I think it is fair to say that it's the intention of the Board to declare a dividend for the based on the full year's profits in line with our previous declared power of around about 2.5x. And obviously, with the low level of borrowings that we have, the almost insignificant amount of debt that we have on the balance sheet, obviously, that supports that.
But also, Pat, this is how long we're talking about cash, is we have continued to invest in CapEx during the year, and we will continue to do so. And we always remain very positive about our future prospects and about the recovery. Even though it was maybe a little bit out of step with what other people were saying, We did think that there would be a strong recovery. And fortunately, we've been proven correct. So our CapEx doesn't just look 6 months in the past.
It looks 2, 3, 5 years down the track. So it's very important that we do carry on that investment trend, which we have done and will continue to do. I think more importantly than what happened in the year is what's happened most recently. And we've given you some sales data from March to month to date August as of last week. And you can see the strong progression itself.
And that's probably the more relevant yardstick to measure against is against 2019. This is already in constant currency. These are turnover percentages. And if you have a look at it, at March, we ran at 73%, and we're currently running over 100% of what we were in August 2019, which is totally non COVID impacted. The 2020 numbers aren't overly meaningful because they were COVID impacted.
But it is fair to say that July August last year were our strongest months of the year in 2020 other than May June in 2021. So you are comparing them with reasonably strong years in 2020, but you're comparing them against a very solid base in 2019. And such a traffic gap above where we were in 2019 in August of 2020, we think is a fantastic achievement. And once again, that's a story of different parts. Australia and New Zealand were the standout performance in 2020, and you can see that they've come off quite significantly in August down to 95% of 2019.
And that's basically because Australia half of Australia's lockdown has been since late June. Various jurisdictions in and out, but basically, a big chunk of the country has been and will continue to be locked down for the next few months, which will obviously have an impact. And New Zealand is going to unfortunately add to that pain because New Zealand went into lockdown, which will start with one case a few days ago, which has been extended. But it does seem to be unfortunately not looking all that great. To my New Zealand colleagues who are on the line, I'm not hopeful that you will get out of your lockdown next Tuesday, but I sincerely hope that you did it because the New Zealand business was tracking absolutely phenomenal.
We've got Europe tracking at 170% in 2019. That's yes, that just talks for itself. Emerging markets at 105%, and that's notwithstanding its due performance out of South Africa, which we'll talk about in a while, and the U. K. Running at 97%.
And in the UK, the reason that we are running a little bit behind 2019 is a lot has opened. We are quite strong into the segments that just haven't recovered yet. And you're talking about conferences and travel related issues. Workplace catering hasn't got back yet. So our core business is doing exceptionally well.
But we're just not at that 100% yet. And our guys are really confident that by September, we'll absolutely be cycling above 100% in 2019, which does play very, very well. So where we sit at the moment is we've got the U. K. Operating full steam ahead.
Let's not worry about COVID. Europe is pretty much the same issue. Most restrictions are lifted. Obviously, there's still lots of travel restrictions and things aren't that easy, but generally, it's back to where it was. And we're seeing absolute record weeks in many, many geographies.
There's obviously a lot of pent up demand. Emerging markets is always a mixed bag. In Asia, you've got some components that are in lockdown. So Singapore is gently emerging out of lockdown. Malaysia is facing lockdown, demand in lockdown.
China is in a state of, we believe, semi lockdown and that moves around a little bit. Hong Kong at the moment is relatively unrestricted. And in South America, they aren't there are restrictions. Lots of parts of the economy aren't open, but notwithstanding that, we're seeing very, very solid growth. The Middle East is performing phenomenally well, and Turkey is performing phenomenally well.
Unfortunately, the summer has been impacted by the fires. I think it's also fair to say that the weather hasn't been the best weather ever from a northern hemisphere point of view from Europe to the U. K. So yes, the fact that we're getting these sales growth numbers are really phenomenal under all the circumstances. Then we can talk a little bit about what happened in South Africa in July.
I know you in the Garden is probably all perfectly aware of it. We have a major distribution center. It's probably our 2nd or third largest distribution center in South Africa, muted on the day of the riots. The closely, the security footage of it was actually fine thinking, it was chilling to watch. It was awful.
Just seeing hundreds of people climbing up, max 13 meters up in the air, looting the place, causing damage, causing massive destruction. And part of this being that was the darkest day I believe I've had at the group in 30 years because they just we just didn't know where this thing was going to go. Fortunately, it calmed down very quickly. Fortunately, our facility wasn't burned down despite the lucha's best effort to burn it down. They did try a few times unsuccessfully, fortunately.
Our sprinkler system prepared for that. But they did manage to steal a warehouse full of inventory. They did manage to cause a huge amount of damage to offices and furniture. They did manage to destroy our whole vehicles. So it really wasn't a great situation.
As you can see, our asset losses were about $73,000,000 which we believe are all covered by SACARE insurance. Obviously, there's a loss of profits claim which sits outside of that, and Tom will tell how that goes. We don't believe that the July new June will have a significant impact on our financial performance in the current year. It's a very unfortunate event, but I suppose the heartwarming part of it is we're back in business for the moment. Our guys moved to heaven and earth and the community came out to help them move heaven and earth.
And with a great effort of humanity, they've managed to restock the place to fix what was broken, to improvise with what couldn't be fixed and replaced. They managed to scratch around with some trucks around the place. And they got back up and going within a week for Crown and Chipkins and within 2 weeks with a few business, which is the most part hit. We never let any customers down. We switched our distribution to Bloomfield, Queen of Marisburg, Johannesburg into the affected areas.
And we certainly got to let our customers down, and we added a lot of cost to it to our business. But it was only the case of let's get through this and let's get our customers through this. Trading is subdued still in KZN and generally in South Africa. Well, I guess as time goes on, it will become more just a factor of the economic situation as opposed to the direct impact of the civil unrest. If we can then move to this floor, which really is the cause of us delaying the release of our accounts, towards the end of June, we uncovered a fall in the Miyumi division of our Angliss Greater China business.
Angliss Greater China Business operates a multi channel, a siloed approach to the market that you've got Angliss that deals in the broad range of product and then we've got specialist businesses that operate in their own silos. We've got Gourmet Partner, Patiently Global, etcetera, they all have a focus. Meiomi was a business that specialized in the global procurement and sale into Hong Kong and China of Japanese style product, of which some was from Japan, but a lot of it was Japanese style product that's used in Japanese cuisine. And we only sold into the Hong Kong market and also into the China market. In Hong Kong, it primarily sold through the Horikitaka business, which is hotels and restaurants, etcetera.
And in China, they were selling through a wholesales. So it was big transactions to few customers. What we uncovered was a very elaborate 4, which was perpetrated by our 10% shareholder, a former 10% shareholder, some employees in the business, commuting in the muni business as well as some third party external third party service providers. I don't want to go into detail with this because this is obviously more subject to legal proceedings, criminal proceedings, investigations, etcetera. Needless to say, it's a large fall, unfortunately.
It's one of those that when it does happen, it's painful, trust me. It doesn't there's no excuses that we can make for it. It's something that possibly should have got picked up a year or 2 earlier. That's great in hindsight. We're all exceptionally brilliant in hindsight.
But we did pick it up. We have terminated the employment of the people involved. We have done a very speedy exit out of that China wholesaling business, and it's all just carrying on. We've done a whole lot of containment work in the last 6 weeks with the points of Ernst and Young to do a full forensic investigation, and we believe there will be recoveries in the future. We just don't care what those recoveries will be, but there is no doubt that certain of the colluding parties, the 3rd party providers, etcetera, will be making restitution.
And as well, we believe that it is subject to insurance claim. But obviously, all of these factors take a long time. It's important to stress that it relates to the newly silo of the endless Greater China business. We have unfortunately some rogue operators acting in collusion in a very sophisticated manner. This wasn't a simple hand in tool path of a project.
It was a very sophisticated, elaborately planned scan that I guess as it got as it progressed over the years, then we've probably got a little bit cleverer and more resourceful with how they with how they hit this. And I thought I'd make no I'm not trying to make excuses for it. We are just taking on the chin, and we are doing a lot of soul searching as to how such a thing could happen and where maybe some systems didn't work as well as they could and what needs to change going forward to ensure something of this magnitude doesn't happen again. Now I guess when you're running a global business, you're in 35 countries, you employ 26,000 people, The product that you're selling has street value. We're selling chicken and prawns and pork and cheese and all of that.
Unfortunately, some people do get greedy. Unfortunately, they are dishonest people in our midst, and we just unfortunately have to be better at catching them. So we've taken the view cleaning it up tightly and taking the most conservative view. We've written off the inventory that we believe is impaired, which are, I think, is in the region of of HKD102 1,000,000. And there's also some receivables that aren't going to be collectible, which will be paired at HKD 253 1,000,000.
The issue that there is with this call goes back 6 years. And seeing that we only uncovered it 6 weeks ago, a whole lot of work is going into which year this relates to because it is a buildup over many years. And as you can imagine, dishonest people cover their tracks very well. So it is quite a complicated effort to backtrack and recreate the TAC and Bali for a 6 year period. But our best estimate is about HKD60 million, dollars 190,000,000 relates to the current year.
So our profits have taken a hit this year of HKD119,000,000 and about HKD95 million belongs to the 2020 year. So the profits in 2020 have potentially been overstated by the ZAR95 1,000,000. Like I said, there's a heap of work that's going on. Ernst and Young are working furiously, interrogating computer records, recreating records. And obviously, we'll put this together as best we can to put it into the correct years.
So there's a lot of work going on. And yes, I think it's fair to say that in everybody's best interest, our auditors' own best interest, we thought, let's give this a little bit of time just to make sure that we have put this into the correct pockets of previous years. We're pretty sure that, that's the correct amount, but there still needs to be a little bit of work to make sure that's better against. So that's the bad news. I think there's a whole lot more good news.
We've got a fantastic business around the place. The actions of a few bad people shouldn't overshadow the fantastic performance of an amazing bunch of people who performed exceptionally well under very, very difficult circumstances. I mean for our business to and you can work it out from the numbers, so hopefully data won't sharply, to generate an EBITDA margin over 5% in a COVID impacted year is phenomenal. A lot of our global peers don't get those margins in their best yields. They aspire to margins like that, and we achieved that in a covered impact to you.
The future looks fantastic. We learn from our mistakes. Unfortunately, we make 1 or 2 along the way. And we've been as open and transparent as we can about the mistakes, but the business is in great shape. The balance sheet is in phenomenal shape, almost no debt.
July trading was exceptionally positive with every single business turning a profit, including the 3 that were on the intensive care list, which are now in the, I guess, in general hospital wards, in Spain, Germany and the UK Fresh Business. They absolutely are well in the path to recovery. So we see the future as very, very bright. We're very, very positive about the prospects of the business. Obviously, we're very upset about the mega business.
We don't like good, bad news. But I think you've guided delta that for a long time. We're going to tell you the truth. We're going to tell you the way it is, watermel. Unfortunately, there is a water to you here.
So we've absolutely disclosed it. And we're moving on running the business positively and we think we're in really good shape. So I think let me just see if David got anything he wants to add and then I know Ashley can send me a few questions, which I can while David is talking, I'll have a look.
Yes, I really honestly don't have too much to add. I think you've covered off all the aspects that we need to talk about. Just to note, so at this point in time, the results will be released on the 29th September. And yes, we'll notify you in the market obviously in terms of what goes around that a little closer to the time.
Okay. I have a question here from an anonymous attendee. Congratulations on net working capital management. You spoke about debtors and stock, but what about credit terms? Have these been extended?
If your revenue run rate continues at current rates, would you expect the business to start absorbing cash? And that's a very good question. We actually haven't stretched our credit results or ten of our credit returns any different to what they were before. So it's pretty much the improvement in working capital has predominantly come out of faster inventory and faster receivables management. And we could take credit for a little bit and maybe you should.
But what we found on the receivables side in reality is our customers actually want to repay their debts. They actually don't want to sit with big obligations over their heads because they don't know I guess they don't have the confidence to know when the next bump in the road is going to be, when the next lockdown is going to come. So they actually don't want to get too much in debt and owe too much. So we've actually seen our debt of the day shortened quite nicely. And on inventory, we've absolutely been able to streamline our ranges in the period.
Customers became way more amenable to our suggestions of what the range should be. Our house brand penetration has absolutely grown as a result of it, which is a long term positive and change in the behavior in the market. Our revenue growth rate, we're at 100% where we were in 2019 and we haven't absorbed a whole lot of cash. So I guess if our revenue growth by another 20%, 70%, 40%, we've got a few issues. And yes, we will absorb some cash.
But I'm not sure we are going to see that quantum of growth in the market. I think it's going to be percentage points above where we are now. I think the one thing I didn't mention, I just reminded myself, is actually one of the biggest challenges we face going forward in many, many markets is labor shortages. We just can't get enough labor to get the work out the door. I mean, I'll say we can't.
We struggle. And we're talking about drivers, warehouse, warehouse cars, etcetera. It's very, very difficult. In the U. K, it's exceptionally difficult.
And as a result of that, we absolutely are going to see cost inflation on our cost base. But fortunately, I think we'll be able to pass that on a revenue base as well because we've also our customers are facing a very similar problem, that they've got the exact same staffing pressures and cost pressures. So there's definitely some cost inflation coming down the path. There's also product inflation coming down the path. Fortunately, on average, the basket is only showing a 2% or 3% inflation metric across most geographies.
And hopefully, it could save that because that's very manageable and probably a positive tailwind in our business. So that's important to note. It's also important to note that many of our customers are restrained and their capacity is restrained, not necessarily by COVID restrictions, but by the availability of stock. A lot of hotels are only operating 50% capacity because they can't get people to clean the rooms and service the restaurants. Our dining establishments, our clubs, etcetera, aren't operating at full capacity because they can't get enough people to work in.
So yes, those are the challenges we face. That's a very long winded answer. Let me see what else we've got. Okay. I'll look through them one at a time.
In what jurisdiction will the needle aid action take place through the fall of Hong Kong? Primarily Hong Kong, there's a very small component to China, but the primary action is in Hong Kong. Greer before, please could you explain exactly how the call was done? How are you certain that this is an issue in other parts of your business? What controls do you plan to put in place on a group wide basis?
I can't tell you exactly how we've done because we are still working it through. And like I said, it's a very sophisticated case of creating customers purchasing inventory. Maybe the inventory wasn't real, went through 3rd party warehouses, and there were some phantom transactions. But I can't give you the full detail, and that will be released in due course. And obviously, that's all subject to full investigation.
How are you certain that this is not unusual in other parts of the business? Look, I've got to answer that question as honestly as I can. And forced to happen, I'd love to say that we're bullet forging our business. That's just not the world we live in. There are a lot of criminal minded people out there.
There are a lot of people who feel intense. We're facing cybersecurity challenges, as is everybody at every point in time. I think the pandemic has accelerated the amount of evil and bad in the world. And how can we ensure that it doesn't exist in other parts of the business? We've got robust controls and overview mechanisms They did fail to a degree here.
We should have caught this a little bit earlier. Obviously, we've beefed up our surveillance through the other businesses, our questioning, our interrogation, etcetera. It's one of those failures that the post mortem will be done in great, great detail, and the learnings will absolutely be taken either. But I guess our greatest strength is that we do run a decent to last business. So when you do have a rogue element that's compliant to that one business.
And there's absolutely nothing to suggest because of anything other than that rogue business. So hopefully, that answers that as much as I can. So let me just I just want to make sure I don't leave any out here. With July and August revenues bouncing back nicely plus F-nineteen levels, Can you give some guidance on what current year cost levels are already to 2019? Yes, I think I sort of gave a roundabout answer to that.
And the roundabout answer is our cost level will be probably pretty similar to February 2019. But there are some cost pressures coming through, but we also do have the benefit of the efficiencies that we gained through the pandemic. So we also did trim some of the fat out of the business. So we do have the benefit of that. But to a degree, that is offset by increased labor costs.
We also see in many geographies increased energy costs and increased fuel costs. But the core our core belief at this stage in our cost of goods business is pretty similar to what it was in 2019, and our margins are pretty similar to what they were in 2019. And we fixed a few of the problem businesses, which obviously some of the upside. If the forward right of the impact of the Hips range, could you please provide a little bit more color regarding the Australian revenue levels 95%, looks very strong given that health in Australia is in lockdown, family levels continue. Let me answer the Australian question and David can answer the head's question.
Fortunately, in Australia, and it's Australasia, by the way. So those numbers are a combination of Australia and New Zealand, of which Australia accounts for about 66% and New Zealand, 33%. And at that point in time, New Zealand wasn't in lockdown, They only went into lockdown this week. So we will see the New Zealand numbers come down quite significantly for the next few weeks while they're in lockdown. Hopefully, they're not missing.
From Australian point of view, we've been absolutely amazed as to the stability that we've seen in our revenue levels. And I guess that talks once again to the fact that we are geographically double in supply and many parts of the country aren't in lockdown. So we don't Queensland is not in lockdown, Northern Territory, WA, South Australia, Tasmania and some of Victoria. So that's absolutely giving us some benefit in that we're not seeing our whole business down. The Australian business is at this point in time still quite handsomely profitable, not at the same level that is when you're running at 100% revenue.
But we certainly haven't seen volume 4 of the cliff and panic settings. So I think the New Zealand impact will come now and will be a little bit severe, but hopefully it's for a short period. So But once again, and this is the optimism, when it does come back, it bounces back incredibly strong. We've seen that in every single geography. So you just have to buckle up and write these problems.
I'll let David talk about the is the forward write up added back to the HEPs range?
Unfortunately enough, those concepts have been taken directly on the notes to the P and L. And I mean, you'll be able to figure out, I guess, the impact on the HEX in the current year. So we don't have the luxury of adjusting those content. If we're in the U. S, I guess, we've shared something different, adjusted and readjusted.
But it's taken basically under those.
Thanks, which I think answers another question here, which is a number of parts. So let me just read the question. Any update on the acquisition through the year from what previously announced cash balance policy providing new opportunities? Just to confirm that $190,000,000 impact of the fall is in the HEP's guidance or is it treated as an exceptional? You mentioned Spain and Germany on the road to recovery with the current outlook for fresh UK.
Now the event market is reopened. So as David said, that $119,000,000 after tax is taken on the churn. So the HEPs number is reduced by that $119,000,000 just to cover off on that. The fresh UK business is looking fine. We're well on the road to recovery, profitable.
We've streamlined it a whole lot. We've got a lot of synergy between it and the food business. They're working much closer together. And without taking the way the individual customer facing that we're famous for and make it a brand business. So we're confident on the Fresh UK business.
We're confident we're staying confident in Germany as we have been. On acquisitions, yes, we have made some acquisitions during the year. We've made small acquisitions in Brazil, Dubai, Italy, Germany and a regional distributor in Australia, which only happened I think at the end of May, might have been June. So it has May impact whatsoever in a regional part of WA called funded. But they're already pretty small.
There is a runway of acquisition opportunities that we're looking at, both Alcon and new geography, but we're still living in difficult times. I can't get out of my house and wind out of the airport. And we've got a lot of those restrictions that we still have to navigate our way through. But I think we are in a great position. We've got a strong balance sheet, and we remain exceptionally positive about prospects of all our businesses and of what the future holds.
More clarity, when we say 10% minority shareholders, so more than 1 shareholder that will make up 10% now. Sorry, it's 1 shareholder who held the 10% who was the general manager of the business. So we bought his business in 2012, I think it was, and he retained a 10% stake in the business. And obviously, he is no longer a shareholder in that business. Regarding our balance of backlog.
I think we've got them all actually. Okay. While I'm just waiting for that, I mean, the one thing I do want to say though is there is still going to be a bit of a bumpy rate to occur. COVID. In our opinion, COVID seems not over.
There's going to be twists that seem to be the gift that keeps on giving. And we are going to have challenges that we have to adjust. And so we don't believe that 'twenty two is going to be a clean year that's certainly comparable to 2019 and it's totally COVID free and everything's back to normal. We're on a long journey. The world's on a long journey, but we believe it's a fantastic the story is fantastic And the future will be great, but let's just not fool ourselves that it's just going to be a linear path upwards.
Hopefully, it is. Okay. What proportion of the customers might be trading at entertainment geography specific. So yes, every country has a different answer to that. And every week gives a different answer to that question as well.
So there are certain segments globally that aren't working if you look at sports betting. Yes, they're starting to happen again in some jurisdictions, but in a lot they aren't, so they're at much lower capacity. The cruise ship industry is stocking up very tentatively, but it's finally. Airline trips in most parts of the world is nonexistent, and flights are operating relatively empty. The office market, the office catering market is generally very depressed.
And there's obviously the big debate as to whether work from home is going to be a good in the future. And whether that segment ever recovers for me or not, my personal opinion is it will recover. It's just going to take some time. I think we're all sick and tired of staying at home too often, but that's a personal opinion. But obviously, that's a reasonable segment.
So it does just depend on the market, but there are many segments that just aren't operating back to where they should be. I think we've got one more. How much of the Hong Kong China business does the pool relate to? Depends how you want to measure it. In terms of revenue, just help me out here, David.
I'm going to say it's $100,000,000 out of $4,500,000,000 So I'm not sure what that is as a percent. 2%, 3%, 3% by revenue, a very small 3%, yes, very. 3%, a very small proportion by profitability. So it really is a small part of the Greater China business with unfortunately a disproportionate spin in the cost of how much it's going to cost us. It's just out of whack, but that's the way it is.
Sorry, the rest of our Hong Kong China business is doing exceptionally well. They're way, way, way in excess of weather in 2019 across Hong Kong and China and Macau. And the business is in good shape. We do put a caveat on that, that we are a little bit concerned about where China is heading in terms of COVID, that it does look like it might have the genie might be at the bottle, but we don't know. The China is the project absolutely elimination.
And so they'll do whatever they have to do to keep it out for who knows how long. So as long as they can keep positive pay, our business will carry on growing and doing very, very well.
And I think also, let's just put
it in perspective what has been achieved in Hong Kong and China. We bought a business in 2007 that was doing about HKD900 1,000,000 of sales a year. We're now doing about 4.5 per year. It was a business that was marginally profitable. It's now a majorly profitable business.
It was a business that had 0 in fact, it was losing money in China, had very little presence and was purely a distributor of New Zealand got a New Zealand branded dairy product. We've now got a broad range distribution network in China of 26 businesses, 26 cities, regions that we service with a broad range of products from a broad range of suppliers, and it's a very profitable business that we don't think is anybody else in our space has anything even close to that. So it's a highly fragmented market and we're absolutely the first to have built a platform of scale in China. And at the same time, growing up our Hong Kong business into this multi silo business that I talked about, focusing on a very small market. Hong Kong only has, I think, it's 7,000,000 or 8,000,000 people.
And so for the size of the market, we've got a business there that has not formed strength of both in the silos that they've operated in, specialty product, format product, natural and organic, seafood, the core protein business, the pastry global business, etcetera. And aluminum was just one more strand of that, one more silo in that business, which wasn't a great scale relative to the total business. I think I've answered all the questions. Thank you, everybody. Thanks for taking the time.
And yes, enjoy your day. As David said, we're not going to take any further questions because we have we're in a close period. So we'll see you then release results and look forward to that and sharing great story and the great picture of where the business is. So thanks, everybody. Stay safe.
Look after yourselves and have a good day. Thank you. Goodbye.