I am Guo Zhi, the Board Secretary of ADAMA. I would like to welcome everyone to attend our roadshow for the full year of 2021. For this meeting, we have interpretation services for both English and Mandarin languages. You can click the icon that represents like a globe, and then listen to your preferred language channel. On your screen, you can see that for the attendees of this meeting, we have the President and CEO of ADAMA, Ignacio Dominguez. Vice President of Finance, Efrat Nagar. Global Head of Strategy, Corporate Development and Capital Markets, Mr. Wayne Rudolph. They are joining us from abroad and meet our investors online, and also to introduce about the company's performance in 2021. There will also be a Q&A session in the end, and you can write and type your questions in our chat box.
In our last session, we will be answering your questions. In today's meeting, we will be presenting a deck showing our full year performance. First of all, this is a legal disclaimer of this presentation for your approval. Right now, showing on the screen is our legal statement. Next, let's welcome Mr. Ignacio Dominguez, President and CEO of ADAMA, to brief you on our performance review.
Thank you, Zhi, and good afternoon to everybody in China, and welcome to this session where we will be sharing with you the results of the fourth quarter of 2021 and how ADAMA ended up the entire year, 2021. I would like to start, if we move to the slide four, by sharing with you a little bit of the conditions that were operating in the market during the fourth quarter. There was a strong demand for crop protection products all over the world, in all the regions, and that was driven by very high prices of the major commodity crops. That was especially important in Latin America, where on top of these high prices, there were increases in terms of planted area.
All these conditions have proven to be very positive for our farmers and their incomes because they were able to capitalize on these high yields and high prices in order to even absorb the inflationary pressures that was coming from all the inputs, especially fertilizers, energy, but also seeds, crop protection, fuel, machinery, et cetera. Despite all this inflation, it was a very positive moment for farmers all over the world. On the other hand, supply for active ingredients, especially sourced from China, it somehow improved, and the prices remained high. There were a few issues that were affecting the logistics during fourth quarter. One is the China dual control restrictions that probably you are all very much aware.
At the beginning of the quarter, at the end of quarter three and the beginning of quarter four, that was affecting the entire industry, even though by the end of the quarter, things came back to normal. At the same time, some of the surges on COVID-19 and its restrictions did affect negatively some of the agrochemical production and the resultants. As a consequence of these two factors, the procurement costs remain high through the quarter. Combine that with all the challenges that we've been sharing with you during the year, the year of 2021. The energy cost was high. There was shortage of shipment space. The transportation resources were somehow disrupted by COVID, but also by the frictions in the domestic supply lines, all of them related to this COVID.
There was an increase in the freight and logistic costs and that were elevated and continued even rising by the end of the quarter. In this environment of very positive economics at farm level with high prices for the commodities and high costs for all the logistic and supply, ADAMA, what we did is that we continued to manage in a most professional way our supply chain activities, but also we put quite a lot of effort on increasing prices in order all over the world, by the way, in order to compensate for these higher costs. We were somehow successful, as I would like to show you when we go into the numbers.
If we move to slide five, you can see that in the fourth quarter. We had strong growth on our turnover of 17%, which led us to a record high for a quarter of $1.3 billion. This growth was mostly driven by prices. Contrary to what we've been sharing with you through the year 2021, in quarter four, we increased our prices by 14% and our volumes still were able to grow, but in a most modest figure, by just 5%. This combination of prices and volume resulted in an increase of our gross margin of 23%, which led us to something that was certainly way above the margins that we achieved in the year before.
This price increase was more than enough in order to compensate all the inflation that we had on our costs. If you combine these factors with the traditional discipline that the company has shown on managing our operating expenses, the result is that our EBITDA for the quarter grew 23%, which is even above the growth that we show on our sales. That is because despite the fact that we have to add additional sales and companies that we acquired through the year, and they came to full terms, but the fact that we were able to manage our OpEx to sales ratio in a very strict way, help us, you know, 'cause you have to compare that this was with a year of very limited activity in 2020 because of the pandemic.
I find that that is the reason why we're showing a very strong EBITDA growth, which is translated as well on the reported net income, where we are seeing, you know, a 33%. Even though in the adjusted it's slower. This operating net income, you know, it's also taking into consideration circumstances like higher taxes and higher financial expenses. This very positive picture that we have shown for quarter four helps us to balance the position for the entire year, as you can see in the next slide. For the entire year, we ended up growing 17% versus 2020, which is mainly driven by volumes, 12% in volumes and 4% increase on prices. This means that our gross profit for the year, it is even.
It's even better than the year before by 15%, okay? It's a very robust outcome for the organization. Remember, the growth of ADAMA, it's really remarkable, and we are celebrating this growth. Now, I was sharing with the organization that our transit from $3 billion to $4 billion took us eight years. Our transit from $4 billion to $5 billion is gonna take us three, okay? These capabilities of the organization to grow, of ADAMA to deliver growth is very remarkable in the market, especially when you combine that with, you know, a certain control of our expenses that combine with the growth on the business and gross profit, delivers a 7% increase on our EBITDA for the year.
You know, we are 7% despite the fact that we were able to sell 17% more, okay? You have to take into consideration all the new acquired companies, all the shipment costs that we were sharing with you and the additional sales of almost $700 million. Despite that, we're showing a very strong growth in our EBITDA because of this combination with the discipline on expenses. When we are looking into our net income, we're showing a figure that is slightly lower than the year before, and both in terms of adjusted and in terms of reported. The operating income of ADAMA is 8% more than the year before.
It is true that the company had first to bear some of our investments for the reasons that you do know. Also we have some higher financial expenses, mainly related with the very expensive financing conditions in the international markets and especially in Israel, and also about hedges that we had to do in order to protect our position in countries where we're growing, especially Brazil. Also the fact that we are accommodating to higher taxes because of the higher profits that we are generating in some of our business units. How did we manage this growth all over the world?
Well, if we move to the next slide number seven, you can see here that in quarter four, we were able to deliver growth in constant exchange rate in all the geographies. It's a bit more modest in Europe, but very remarkable. You see the growth that we had in all the Asia Pacific region. On top of that, the growth that we were able to deliver in China, it's very, very important. You know, 76% growth in China in quarter four versus the year before, it's remarkable. It comes not only from our branded business in China, but also by our sales of our intermediates and raw materials. Our industrial sales were very positive. It's not the only success story that we had in the quarter.
We have very strong performance of Argentina, very strong performance of Brazil, also from Australia, from India. Overall, you see that the company was able to deliver growth of 70% in U.S. dollars, which was higher in constant exchange rate. That is the picture as well when we look into the entire year. The entire year, which is in the slide eighth. Here you can see that there are very remarkable growth coming from many places. Asia Pacific on top of it and China on top of it. You know, our growth in China was remarkable last year with almost 50% in U.S. dollar, but 58% in constant exchange rate. You know, our crop protection business is the fastest growing crop protection business among the Syngenta Group in China.
We're very proud that what we are doing, it's really helping not only the industry by our sales of raw materials, but also we are setting very good foundation in order to support farmers and customers in China. On top of that, you know, Asia Pacific, we had a very good year in Australia. We also had remarkable growth in South Africa. Maybe things for this year might be a bit more challenging in those territories because of the influence of La Niña, but very remarkable. Also, Argentina and Brazil, they are in very good position. They continue to deliver year after year remarkable growth for ADAMA. Also our businesses in North America, both the ag business compared with the previous years showing remarkable growth and our consumer and professional division.
It is, it's combined in a very strong way, their activities in order to create demand and to reach consumers in a very remarkable way. Even Europe, where you see a modest 3%, you might think, "Oh, it's disappointing," but it's still growing above the market. Situation in Europe was very challenging last year, mainly because of weather, also because of regulation. In a year like this, we will talk a little more later. It's, you know, they're facing new challenges with the situation in East Europe with the conflict in Ukraine, and that is affecting overall the food industry. I will address it in a moment, okay? In the next slide, you have all the details by territory.
Again, I want you to point out that despite Europe, where we have challenges of supply in France and Germany and also some of these weather conditions, it was a moderate growth that is above the market. The rest, everything, it's showing very strong and robust growth, both in volumes, but also in prices. That is extremely important for the company moving into the year 2022. In fact, one of the good things that we can share with you is that a lot of the price increases that we were able to accommodate by the end of the year, this tendency is moving into the year 2022, at least at the beginning of the year 2022. Remarkable, as I said, our sales both in ag and non-ag in China.
We're very proud of how the acquisition of Huifeng allowed us to bolster our position in farm inputs in China. Let me go a little bit more in detail of the financials. I would like then to move in a bit more to analyze with you some of the figures that I just showed. Okay? We're moving to slide 11. Let me start by the quarter four turnover. You see here that contrary to, or in a different view to what we saw in many quarters during the year 2021, quarter four was the time that we were able really to transfer price increases in a remarkable way into the market. In a way that you can see that our growth is almost three times the growth that we had in volumes and prices.
That was certainly a very positive outcome for the organization that even included, you know, compensated some of the exchange rate effects. That is, it's even more important when we look at the overall of the quarter, the full year. If we see in the slide 12, the entire year, the company grew from $4.1 billion. Could you please move to the next slide? Yeah. Grew $4.1 billion to $4.8 billion. Remarkable growth. You know, $147 million came from prices on top of the $498 million, almost $500 million in volumes. You know that if you've been following us, you know that the company, it's very consistent in our growth of volumes into the market.
We do have these commercial capabilities that allow us really to have a very strong presence with customers, with farmers all over the world. The fact that we're able also to increase our prices and transfer some of the inflation that we are experiencing in our costs, it was extremely important for ADAMA during last year. On top of, we had slightly a beneficial effect from exchange rate that ended up the company being with these remarkable 17% and knocking at the door of the $5 billion, which is something that we are confident that soon we will surpass. How does it look in terms of, well, gross profit? Well, fourth quarter was, as I said, very positive. You see a 23% margin increase.
You can see here that the cost variance I was sharing with you, that many of the circumstances or the challenges are still alive. The dual control, the COVID restrictions, the transportation challenges. Yes, still we had an impact on our cost of $80 million, but we were able to compensate that and beyond by price increases all over the organization, where we almost increased our prices by twice the impact that we have on our cost variance. Meaning that our quarter, compared with the year before, is not only that we have a remarkable growth on gross profit dollars, it's also that we increased by more than one point our gross margin for the quarter.
That is, it's very critical 'cause when you look into the entire year, in the next slide 14, you know, the entire year, what you can see here is that the capabilities of the company to increase prices to compensate cost is strategically important. You saw that the effect over the entire year of $140 million more than the year before in our cost was totally compensated by the price variance. You know, our growth in profits was coming from the volumes. You know, in terms of gross profit dollars, you can see that there is almost $200 million of growth, despite the fact that the margin is slightly lower in terms of percentage.
It's strategically important for us to be able to transfer these cost increases into the market. As I said before, we're confident that we are in the right track in order to deliver that also in 2022. It's extremely important for us. The picture in EBITDA is shown in slide 15 for the quarter. Once again, you can see that the story is the EBITDA contribution that we have by this price increase. It's more than enough in order to compensate all the negative effects that we might have by cost variance, by operating expenses variance and by exchange rate.
Just one thing that I want you to remember is that we are increasing our operating expense by $30 million, but you have to remember that we are growing our sales by more than $200 million, which is, you know, very remarkable in the sense that it's showing that the company has been always very rigorous on maintaining our operating expenses. So we are, in that sense, very sober. That's the picture as well for the entire year. If we move into slide 15, you can see that price variance once again compensates the cost variance. Our quantity variance is higher than our operating expenses.
Behind these two positive factors, where we are showing the growth in EBITDA of more than $310 million just in volumes and prices, are the reasons why they're driving our growth in our EBITDA versus the year before by 7%. These are some of the numbers that we had on the upper side. There are some other stories that I think that are relevant for you to understand what are our differences between reported and adjusted, and also some of the good things that ADAMA has been doing during last year in the way we manage our operating cash flow.
In order to elaborate a little bit more about those two topics, I'll ask Efrat Nagar to join me on the call and share with you a little bit more of those details. Efrat, please.
Thank you, Ignacio. As you are all familiar, we are presenting our numbers in adjusted manner, and we have some adjustments that I would like to explain. Basically these are a one-time non-cash or non-operational adjustments that are not impacting our normal and regular business. Let's go to the numbers. The first adjustment, as you remember last year, the amortization of legacy PPA of 2017 acquisition of Solutions. As we committed last year, we see the decrease in this amount in 2021, and probably next year we will not see it anymore. The second one about Syngenta divestment, it's also reducing versus last year.
The main adjustment here is regarding the upgrade and the relocation of Sanonda in 2021. Next year, with the Sanonda going back to normal production, these numbers will be much lower if any. In general, some adjustments that we probably will see lower in 2022. Next slide, please. Slide 18. As Ignacio mentioned, our cash flow in 2021 was extremely positive, coming mainly from a better working capital management. If we are looking in the inventory, it was deliberately increased by the end of 2021 in order to try to mitigate the expected challenges in logistics, in the supply that will come in H1 2022. We see here $258 million.
In days, it's much lower as it's going to address the higher demand in 2022 that we already see now. Regarding customers, Ignacio mentioned that our sales increased by 17% versus last year. We see here that although we saw a huge increase in our sales, our receivables are much lower by $95 million. This is coming by better collection and collection management during the year. I think that is a very good signal for us. The last one is about the suppliers, + $310 million. This is coming from mainly two reasons.
One is, of course, our higher inventory and our higher procurement during Q4, but also from managing to extend the supplier days and the credit terms with the suppliers. All in all, we can see that our operating cash flow in 2021 we finish it by $710 versus $292 in 2020. The most important, our free cash flow is positive $75 versus $150, and you will see in the next slide. Regarding the ratio net debt to EBITDA, I think for the first time for the last I don't know, maybe tw or three years, now we are below the two, which is also a very, very good sign for ADAMA. We are very comfortable with this.
Let's go to the next slide so I can present the free cash flow. Slide 19. As I explained, the comparison between last year and this year, main positive income are coming from our cash, our working capital management, positive $110 million. This $410 million is more than to offset our increasing the investment in our capital investment in China and in Israel, and also our last acquisition in China, Dubai and Spain, as Ignacio explained, which contributes a lot to our 2021 results. We are finishing 2021 with positive free cash flow of $75 million. Thank you, Ignacio.
Thank you, Efrat. Okay. As you can see, the year had a strong finish in terms of many of the things that we are managing in ADAMA. We told you in the previous call, said we are reaching an inflection point, and we are confident that that might be the situation when we're moving into the year 2022. Let me share with you a little bit of pieces of information that we think are relevant in order to understand the environment where we are playing in the year 2022, and how do we see the company in navigating through the challenges that we have right now.
The first thing that I have to share with you is what is the outcome of the war that is happening right now in Ukraine and the uncertainty that is happening in the geopolitical East European situation. Well, let me say first that we are totally committed to support the business in East Europe. As we are speaking, in fact, we are selling in both territories, both in Ukraine but also in Russia, because it is extremely important to support farmers and the food production in the world. Different thing is how the economic outcome of these activities will come out, the capabilities of both countries in order to export grain. Ukraine and Russia, they represent a very critical component of the global exports of cereal, corn, also rapeseed, and many other outputs in the agricultural world.
We are evaluating what might be the impact that it will have in our organization. We don't have final numbers right now, but we are totally confident that this situation will not affect materially the results of quarter one, and we're still unclear about what will be the effect that will come for the rest of the year. There's no doubt we will have some negative effect. We're still trying to evaluate very close to the ground what are the risks involved and how much that will affect ADAMA. On the other hand, we are also very close to other places where we do know that there will be better opportunities as a consequence of what it is not being produced in East Europe.
That is something that as a company, we have that flexibility, that agility, that capability to understand which other markets in the world, whether they are Europe, whether they are in Latin America or in North America, we're trying to evaluate which other territories might compensate partially what we might lose in the Eastern European business. As I said, it's not going to be material for quarter one, and we are still trying to address what will be the impact in the rest of the year. This situation in Eastern Europe has certainly influenced that crop prices are still very high. There is a robust demand and consumption, but at the same time, there is a concern about the availability of fertilizers. You need to understand that only Russia today exports 40% of the global potash.
In places like Brazil, for example, 20% of the fertilizers that are used there are coming from Russia. 30% of the potash, by the way, comes from Russia. Northern Europe, I mean, 40% of the ammonia is coming from Russia. There is going to be a certain impact as well on the fertilizers, but the demand is very robust. We see that despite views that we were thinking that maybe was going to be a drop in this demand and prices at the beginning of the year, that's not the situation right now. However, that has also put some additional pressure in terms of competition and in terms of cost. It's affecting. These issues are affecting the currencies all over the world.
We see that our exchange rate is impacting our U.S. dollar sales. Not only that, as a consequence of that, we are also having issues in terms of everything that is on cost. By the way, cost that is mainly driven by a certain tension on the markets, thinking about product availability, but also the cost of energy. We are experiencing right now high increase, not only in oil, but also in coal energy. We're seeing that as we are talking today, there are high costs of energy that immediately are translated into high cost of production and high cost of transportation. We do understand that the pressure on margins will continue being there by significant price increases in raw materials, AIS.
We are envisioning that maybe in the second half of the year, there will be a slight reduction on the price of raw materials and in the prices of active ingredients. We are not sure about all other components like transportation, space of cargo, and energy costs. That is an issue. On top of all these things, COVID is not helping. You do know right now some of the restrictions that we're having, for example, in the Shanghai Port. It's even though it's still operating, but it's starting to have a certain effect, not on shortages, but it's having certain disruptions. That you do know that is related with all these COVID research that is happening in China. On top of the currency, your Chinese currency is still performing very strong.
The RMB, it's still appreciating versus the dollar. Despite the fact that the Israeli shekel, it's been softening a little bit, the reality is that we are operating in this exchange in this currency environment that is putting pressure on cost. Very important then for the organization is to keep maintaining our prices high and transferring to the market the cost inflation as much as we can, which sometimes it's challenging, but that is the focus for the organization. Thank you all. I think that with that I'll finish the presentation and it's enough for you to listen to us. Now we want to hear from you, and we want to listen to your questions so that we can answer as best we can. Okay? Please.
Thank you, Ignacio, for your introduction. Now we're getting into the Q&A session. On the right of the screen, you can type in the question. We can see now that there are some questions here. The first question is, does ADAMA and its subsidiaries have fertilizers in its portfolio? And please introduce your products targeting soybeans.
Thank you for the question. No, we don't have, as an overall organization, fertilizers. We do have few companies all over the world that they are producing some special fertilizers. For example, our Greek subsidiary, they do have a small fertilizer business. Our Chilean subsidiary, they do have something that they call the special fertilizers in the nutrient area. Traditional fertilizers that are coming from potash or ammonia, like NPK, the ones that are really needed in order to enhance production, no, we don't have. The group does. As you know, the group has Sinofert and they have their own operations. Syngenta Group has that, but not ADAMA. Okay?
Nevertheless, the availability of fertilizers will affect ADAMA in the sense that it will help farmers to take decisions whether they will be cropping more or not. For example, we do know that corn farmers in the U. S. Are evaluating right now if they increase areas in order to produce more corn to balance the lack of supply that will come from East Europe. The limiting factor is the access to fertilizers. Very similar question for Brazil and for Argentina, where they will have to evaluate if their local capabilities of fertilizers will make it available for them to grow more. I hope that is one of the part of your question.
The second question is we do have a very robust portfolio in soybean, and we do have a very strong position, especially in the control of diseases for soybean. That is behind the very remarkable growth that we're having in all Latin American countries. That's the reason why we are sustaining growth in Brazil. That is the reason why places like Argentina in first place, but also Paraguay and others in Latin America, they're performing very well. We have set of new products that are coming not only to reinforce our position, but we do have innovative formulations that I've probably talked to you in other of our meetings. Innovative formulations that deliver superior performance for ADAMA. Behind those products, we have a locomotive to deliver growth. Okay?
Next, our second question. Within the past years during which ADAMA has been listed, your former supplier, Rainbow Agrochemicals, has witnessed very high profits and revenue growth. I would like to ask if there is a possibility of ADAMA being replaced and surpassed by Rainbow Agrochemicals, because for these suppliers, they have also started to develop off-patent business, and they are also applying many registrations. I had asked this question four years ago. I had asked ADAMA to be aware of such companies. I'm just wondering if you think for Rainbow Agrochemicals and such suppliers, will they pose as a threat to ADAMA and will ADAMA be replaced?
Thank you for that question. I'll take this one. Firstly, I think it's fair to say that Rainbow's performance this year was extremely impressive. They are certainly a very good company, and we have absolutely a lot of respect for them and what they do. I think it's interesting to identify how a company like Rainbow differs from a company like ADAMA. It'll help us, I think, to understand how it is that they can enjoy such a strong financial performance in one particular year when the dynamic is not necessarily the same for a company like ADAMA. This is the case, I think, also for other similar kind of Chinese suppliers who largely earn their profits from the sale of-
Active ingredients in the wholesale market. Of course, for them, in the current environment where the prices of raw materials and active ingredients and intermediates is extremely high, as Ignacio has already said, then of course for them, this is a great time for them to enjoy high profits in their business. They also, of course, are a big seller of glyphosate. We know that glyphosate has enjoyed a very, very strong run in the last year or year and a half. Companies like Rainbow, but not only Rainbow, also many other Chinese peer companies of ours, are enjoying the recent period, and it's good for their profits.
On the other side, ADAMA, for us, we are focused on the sale of end formulated products in the global agricultural markets. As you know then, for us, these active ingredients and intermediates are largely input costs for us, as opposed to revenue sources for us. Although we do make some good revenue in China, largely in China from some of this. For us, the bulk of our profits comes from formulated products in end markets. For us, the increase in active ingredient prices and the intermediates and raw materials actually is a big burden on our costs and our cost structure. However, we strongly believe that our business model over time will be a more sustainable, more diversified, and ultimately higher profit business model over time.
There will be years like this last year where, for a short period of time, because of the artificial increase in active ingredient prices, there will be such years where the suppliers outperform us. I think over time, as these active ingredient prices come back down to an equilibrium, and the profits that are generated by the Chinese suppliers also comes back down into equilibrium, we'll see that what really will drive the long-term profit of the industry is the growth of the agricultural markets, of the end markets, and our relevance in front of the ultimate customer who's the farmer. I think from that perspective, we have a lot of respect for companies like Rainbow.
They really are good and efficient companies. We do not believe that they will replace us in any way. They do have some degree of overseas registrations, but certainly a drop in the ocean compared to companies like ours, who have not only a portfolio of global registrations, but also commercial sales forces, feet on the ground, that are speaking directly to customers and to farmers. It's not something that they can easily replicate. It will take them decades, similar to what it took ADAMA to build up this company over decades. Thank you for that question.
Thank you, Wayne. As for our third question, as a subsidiary of Syngenta Group, why does ADAMA have to share or amortize liabilities of the group every year? This is the word for word translation. However, for me, I don't think ADAMA will share the liabilities of Syngenta Group. Maybe you want to ask about the transferred asset of the acquisition of Syngenta Group. Maybe you want to ask about this kind of amortization, if I understand it correctly. The floor is again given to Wayne.
Yes. Thank you. I think it's a useful clarification to make. As Efrat shared with you, we do have some amortization charges that are related to a portfolio of products that we acquired from Syngenta in 2018. Those of you that were with us back then will remember that we did essentially what we call the back-to-back transaction, where we sold some a portfolio of products in Europe to a company called Nufarm, one of our global competitors. We took the proceeds from that sale and passed those through to Syngenta in exchange for a portfolio of equal value from Syngenta. That was a transaction that had no real impact on our business. We divested some products and acquired some other products. Overall, our business continued.
It did have an accounting impact in that the products that we divested, of course, were in many cases old products that had no book value anymore, so they had very little amortization remaining. Then, of course, when you do an acquisition, it's as if it's a new product that comes in and you therefore have to start amortizing. The reason that we adjust for the amortization of these products is because we're trying to show that it really wasn't the acquisition of brand-new products that we had just developed, but it was really just a swap of various parts of our portfolio with no real economic impact, even if there was an accounting impact.
We are not sharing in liabilities of the Syngenta Group. You don't have to be concerned about that. This is simply an accounting amortization related to the products that we acquired from them in 2018. Thank you.
Thank you, Wayne. Next question. For the production resumption of Sanonda and Huifeng, what is the current status in these two sites, and do the two sites reach their reasonable level of capacity utilization? Do you foresee that their production can be normalized in 2022? Ignacio, would you like to address that?
Yes, thank you. Look, it's the most pleasing thing that I can say is that they are right now in production. The relocation of Sanonda, our Jingzhou site, was not something trivial. It not only demanded quite a lot of effort from the organization, from a technological point of view, it was a true challenge because also the HSE standards that we're meeting today are top class. They are on the leading edge of HSE standards in entire China. And we have a site now that is back to production in a very pleasing levels. You know that we are producing dimethoate and acephate. We are at full capacity of dimethoate, okay? Now everything that we need in terms of commercial demand for dimethoate, we're capable to produce in Sanonda, and that is remarkable.
We're still in a ramp-up level with acephate. We are probably reaching 50% of the capacity, and we are ramping up in a reasonable way in order to ensure that all the new technologies are coming into place. This 50% is a remarkable improvement versus not only the last two years, even versus the situation where we were in the old site of Sanonda. We have great capabilities as we are moving forward to reach levels that will be very pleasing for our commercial activities and for our presence in the manufacturing. Same happens with Huifeng. Also, the ramping up, the starting up the production, it was very challenging. You have to remember, Huifeng was almost stopped for three years. These factors is not like turning back a car.
These are really sophisticated in places and sites and installations and it's really complex to move back to all the lines into production. I can say that with the exception of one product, which is bromoxynil, where we are expecting to have production by the end of mid-April, because the rest of all the lines that we had in Huifeng, they are in production. Not only that, we are even evaluating if the current layout needs to be also adapted in order to cope with some of the opportunities that we see right now because of the impact in the market and specifically in Europe.
In fact, two of the products that we have in Huifeng, which are 2,4-D and MCPA, we might have, you know, great opportunities because of the higher demand that happens in the market. We are evaluating whether our existing capabilities can be even enhanced in order to cope with some of those opportunities. Coming back to your question, yes, we are very pleased about how these returning back to normal operations is going in both places, and certainly will represent a true benefit for our results in the year 2022.
Thank you, Ignacio. Next question. The robust price increase of your company in Q4 is really pleasing news. How do you see the price trend onward? Do you think this increased momentum can be maintained in 2022?
Thank you. As you say, yes, there is a good momentum. What I can tell you is that we were able to increase prices through the year 2021. Certainly we did in the fourth quarter. We are increasing prices in quarter one versus fourth quarter, okay? We are expecting also that these levels of high prices will remain at least during the first half of the year 2022. In any case, just bear in mind that the price increase versus the same period the year before is remarkable. Even if there is a slight reduction on prices, as we're moving through the year, they will be much higher when we compare with the year before in double-digit figures. That's where we are right now in price increases.
Even if there is a slight decrease, there will be higher prices than the year before. I can say that the momentum, it is fine, and we are certainly capitalizing on that in quarter one, and we're very confident about quarter two. Also very important will be what happens with all the supply chain structure in the second half of the year, what might happen from China. If the current conditions remain, also the procurement costs of raw materials and active ingredients will remain high. That certainly will be a good atmosphere to deliver price increases. We're positively confident about that.
Thank you, Ignacio. Next. About your PR release. You mentioned that there will be a number of new products to be launched, and also there will be a plan for a capacity expansion. How significant does the company predict the contribution from these new investments will be for 2022 and the coming one or two years?
First, the company has a very robust pipeline of new active ingredients. We, if you remember, we shared with you that we were investing in order to ensure that there is a constant flow of new active ingredients coming into our portfolio. That was our strategy since the year 2017. We've been able to bring into life several new AIs during the last years, like Indoxacarb, like Prothioconazole, like Fluxapyroxad. This is not the end of it. We've introduced five new AIs in the last years. We have very strong plans to introduce new AIs during the coming three years, okay? Including some new AIs that might hit some of the markets in the year 2022. That, it's a must for ADAMA to ensure that this is happening.
It's not the only thing where we are investing. Having new products, it's part of our strategy that is combined with two other elements that make us very, very strong in our competition. The first one is investing in our manufacturing capabilities. You've seen that through the last years. We are committed to invest both in China and also in Israel and in other places in order to secure that we have the best cost for some of these active ingredients that we are utilizing. By the way, we're also exploring opportunities with other group companies in order to ensure that we do have these cost capabilities produced in-house. At the same time, we're investing in our formulation capabilities in order to secure that tomorrow we will have unique formulations that will provide value and differentiation for ADAMA.
Let me share with you an example. One of these AIs that we've introduced during the last years is Prothioconazole. Today, Prothioconazole is registered in many of the European and Latin American markets through formulations that are unique and differentiated, providing better efficacy than their competitors on the segment. At the same time, we've invested heavily in Israel, in Brazil, and in contract manufacturers in order to ensure that we do have the best cost. We are evaluating also the capabilities that we might have in Anpon and the capabilities that we might have in Huifeng. Even we will be cooperating with Yangnong in order to achieve this cost leadership of our active ingredients that will go into differentiated formulation. You know, everything is coming to place.
Yes, the organization is putting quite a lot of resources, but this strategy is very powerful and will pay back in the results of years to come. Starting with the new AIs that we're gonna launch this year and the years after. We're gonna launch five new AIs in between 2022, 2023 and 2024.
Okay. The next question. Now the profit and the share price of various global agrochemical players have reached the historical record when the crop market is booming. We see the share prices of FMC, Corteva and UPL have all increased significantly. When will the same happen to our company and when will this happen?
When are you-
Number eight.
Sure. I can take that one. Thank you.
I will compliment you, Wayne. Okay?
Okay. Sure. Sure. No problem. I think that clearly the share prices of some of our competitors have performed well, although not all of them. Our competitors are going through many of the same dynamics that we are. Many of our competitor companies have grown very strongly in the last year or two. I will say that ADAMA is among the strongest growing of these competitors globally, right? We've grown in actual fact faster than some of them. I will say that also in terms of the reaction of the markets to price increases or to the cost increases through raising prices, ADAMA has been doing okay.
We've been keeping up with most of the competitors in terms of price increases, especially now, with what we saw in Q4, with a very, very strong response in prices, which is, I think, stronger than some of the other competitors. However, I do think that we recognize that ADAMA has been through something very unique that many of our other competitors have not yet been through. And this is in terms of the large projects that we are undertaking, specifically on our manufacturing side, and largely related to China, right? We have invested a lot of investment into the relocation and upgrade of the facilities in China. Something that has...
Something, firstly, that is very strongly part of our strategy and what we believe is going to be a strong engine for our growth and profitability going forward. However, it has posed challenges while we're going through the process. Of course, we are incurring some of these costs that our competitors are not, if they're not involved in similar processes. Which is why we then show the impact of these upgrade and relocation expenses, because we do believe them to be transient. We believe them to be temporary. Once we emerge from this investment phase, we believe that our profitability will improve. Hopefully our share price will respond in kind.
We realize, of course, that our share price has underperformed our competitors, but we believe we're on the right track and we appreciate the support of our investors as we go through this journey.
Just to build on that comment. We're very appreciative of you being with us through moments of heavy investment in order to secure our position through the years and through the years to come for the future. I think that in our last call, I was telling you, maybe we are in an inflection point, and I really believe that is the situation. Because we have great strategic plans behind all the things that we've invested in order to secure a very solid platform that we have in China and in other places. The company is in a very good position in order to capitalize on those investments, not only for the benefit that might have for the group, but for ADAMA, but also for the benefits that might have for the group.
You know, one of the things that we are evaluating right now in the future is how can we better utilize group assets for the benefit of everybody within the Syngenta Group. In that sense, our three sites, Sanonda, Anpon and Huifeng, they play a very critical role, not only for the future benefit of ADAMA, but for the future benefit of Syngenta Group, on top of other sites that might come from the group and specifically from Yangnong, where we are evaluating great opportunities of cooperation.
Okay, thank you. The next question is for Syngenta and Yangnong. Last year, the transaction value is about $3 billion. So I want to know the transaction situation with ADAMA.
Okay. Look, there are certainly a lot of transactions that are happening among the different entities in the group, okay? Not only with Syngenta or with Yangnong, also with MAP, also with Sinofert, where we are also utilizing some of their retail capabilities in order to enhance our growth. The key thing is not so much what is the amount of the transaction, but the benefit of the synergies that are generated. I can tell you that for the group, these synergies are way above half a billion dollars in terms of sales. For ADAMA, this is way above $250 million of sales in the year 2021 that were generated by cooperation with Syngenta or with Yangnong.
Not only that in terms of sales and the turnover, additional sales that were generated by this cooperation is also that about $90 million of our EBITDA last year was generated by synergies created on our cooperation with group entities. This cooperation was not only in terms of sales, not only in terms of pure transactional activity of companies selling, you know, yeah, group selling to us or us selling to Syngenta. There were many other areas where we were able to cooperate. For example, we were able to put together volumes of two of the business units in order to negotiate with cargo space on these shipment routes that I was talking to you. We were able to have benefits from better rates on shipments.
The company was able to generate last year very important figures of synergies that are related to ADAMA. Okay?
The next question is. One of the advantages ADAMA has in the global market is extensive and diversified registrations and products. Can you please elaborate and update more details about your product registration and development plans?
Yeah. You're absolutely right. The key thing about ADAMA is our global reach and our capability to register products. What I can say is that first we have been evaluating about 90 new concepts of formulations that are coming into our pipeline into year 2021. Okay? Let's start by that. We do have 90 new formulations that we are right now evaluating in our portfolio. These will hit the market over the next five-six years. Okay? Every year we have operations that are almost in 100 countries all over the world. In all these places, we are registering products.
In fact, the numbers of new registrations and label extensions that we had last year, it is certainly in the vicinity of 300 new registrations worldwide. But the key thing is not so much whether we are able to enlarge our portfolio, is that we are putting quite a lot of effort on having more and more differentiated products that allowed us to capitalize on generating and capturing value for farmers and capturing value for ADAMA. As I said before, we are investing heavily, not only in registrations and in new concepts, it's also we're investing heavily on differentiated formulations. We do have a big project, strategic project in order to deliver more and more unique formulations.
This last year, we were able to sell ARMERO, or we were able to deliver Sorbital products that are combining active ingredients of our portfolio, providing a unique outcome in the formulations. That is a strategic approach that we are reinforcing. It's not only the registration base which we are, as I'm telling you, very, very efficient all over the world. It's that we have a robust pipeline and then a strategic direction to capture value by differentiation and innovation in the formulation side.
Okay. The next question. In 2021, the sales volume showed strong growth. How is the current inventory situation in global distribution channels? How does the company foresee the major risks of sales in the future?
The situation in the channel, it's not the same all over the world. Okay? As I said before in my presentation, the demand is very strong. There is robust demand in the market because of the instability that is on the price and on availability of grain. There are places that, yes, they have inventories, but nothing is really a concern. You know, I think that, for example, let me pick the U. S., okay? There are inventories in the channel, but the reason for not depleting those inventories is not that there is no demand at farm level or that they have very big levels of inventory.
The situation is that right now farmers are evaluating whether they will increase their surface in order to attend the growing demand that might come from non-production in East Europe or if they are evaluating economically, if they're gonna be able to do that. That is putting a certain questioning on the demand. The levels of inventories in all the main markets starting from Europe or the U. S. Or Brazil or Latin America in general are not a concern. Very strong consumption last year in the ground in the southern hemisphere, Australia, South Africa, Argentina, and in Europe, where we were a bit concerned at the beginning of the year, an early campaign and the disruption. Europe today is thinking about bringing back into production fallow land.
Fallow is a land that was out of production for several years. They have already announced that they are putting EUR 500 million aid in order to bring that into production. Europe is going to find that the inventories that they have in the channel will have to afford to produce in more land. This is the situation where we are today. We're not concerned about the level of inventories, nor about the sales per se. I want to be clear with all of you. We are confident that the turnover of the company will be okay. We're much more focusing that we do a proper business in terms of maintaining our profitability, prices, et cetera, et cetera.
Okay. The next question. The company argued that the large amount of investment inside China influenced its margin, but the investment is CapEx, not very much relevant to profitability. Could you further explain? Number 16.
I think this is a question in response to a comment that I made a little bit earlier about what we're doing in China has impacted our P&L. It's a very good question. It's not always straightforward. Essentially, you're right, that most of the investment per se as investment, of course, is CapEx and does not go through the P&L. However, there are definitely P&L impacts on our profitability related to these investments. Firstly, while we are suspending production in the old site and before we've ramped up production in the new site, there is idleness in the production facilities.
That idleness, while we are not yet operating at full capacity, of course, goes through our P&L, in the form of costs that are not covered by product sales. That's just one example. A second example and one of the larger costs that we include in our adjustments that we provide you is that while some of these lines are suspended or not yet fully operational, we do protect our position in the global markets through alternative procurement of those products from external parties. Of course, when we do so, it's done at a higher cost than when we produce it ourselves. That also has another impact through our P&L.
You know, there are a number of, let's say, undesirable impacts, on a temporary basis that hits our P&L as well as the investment itself, which of course goes through the balance sheets and the cash flow statement. It's not like the P&L is unimpacted. Therefore, we also expect that once we emerge from these investments and relocation processes, we expect that the P&L also will show some improvements as well.
Okay. Thank you, Wayne. Our meeting is going to be concluded at 5:00 P.M. China time, and we're almost at the end. Maybe we cannot answer all the questions by investors online, but actually we have set up a special channel for email and questions from investors. You're very welcome to contact us through the email or the channel. So this is the end of our investor meeting today. Please keep in contact with us. Please support ADAMA as you always do. Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much. Thank you.