HONG KONG, April 30, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Euro Tech Holdings Company Limited (NASDAQ:CLWT) today reported financial results for the 12-month period ended December 31, 2023 ("Fiscal 2023"). The Company had net income of US$1,828,000 in Fiscal 2023, as compared to US$369,000 for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2022 ("Fiscal 2022"). This increase was because of increase in equity in income of affiliates as its affiliates had a non-recurrent gain on disposal of 2 desulfurization treatment plants for a "Build-operate-transfer" project located in Shanxi, China. The Company's revenues for Fiscal 2023 were US$17,940,000, an approximate 20.0% increase compared to US$14,949,000 for Fiscal 2022. The increase was principally due to increase in revenues from trading activities as a result of recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic disruption. Gross profits decreased by 16.4% to US$3,861,000 for Fiscal 2023 as compared to approximately US$4,618,000 for Fiscal 2022. The decrease was primarily due to the decrease in gross margin % of engineering activities as affected by the continuous economy slowdown in Mainland China and adverse impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Selling and administrative expenses decreased by 8.6% to approximately US$4,103,000 for Fiscal 2023 as compared to approximately US$4,490,000 for Fiscal 2022. The decrease was principally due to cessation of the business operations of Shanghai Euro Tech Limited since September 2022. Mr. David Leung, CEO of the company commented, "In 2023, all COVID-19 related policies have been cancelled. However, the pace of economic recovery in China remains slow and below growth expectations. Despite these challenges in 2023, we managed to increase sales orders for Ballast Water Treatment Systems ("BWTS") from the maritime industry, and continue expanding our sales regions and deepening our sales networks in Dubai, Singapore, Thailand, and Turkey. In the upcoming days, we will anticipate a surge in the demand for smaller sized BWTS retrofits. We believe certain countries with small and medium sized ships will experience high growth in demand, especially since we have recently signed an agreement with ERMA FIRST from Greece to become our exclusive distributor & OEM partner. This agreement covers the distribution of our BWTS systems across 20 countries in Europe strengthening our sales and accelerating our penetration into this region. Moreover, we aim to seek more strategic partners or distributors to capitalize on growth opportunities in certain countries, such as UAE and Turkey.  We will actively promote our mobile port BWTS reception facility to key ports worldwide, as this is also aligned with IMO guidelines as well and we are well positioned in this niche market. In fact, we are going to promote our system at the well-known maritime exhibition in Germany, SMM ...