Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the China Automotive Systems' Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2021 Conference Call. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode and the floor will be opened for questions and comments after the presentation. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host, Kevin Theiss. Sir, the floor is yours.

Thank you. Thank you everyone for joining us today. Welcome to China Automotive Systems' 2021 Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2021 Conference Call. Joining us today are Chairman, Chen; and Mr. Qizhou Wu, Chief Executive Officer; and Mr. Jie Li, Chief Financial Officer of China Automotive Systems. They will be available to answer questions later in the conference call with the assistance of translation. Before we begin, I will remind all listeners that throughout this call, we may make statements that may contain forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements represent the company's estimates and assumptions only as of the date of this call. As a result, the company's actual results could differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements due to a number of factors including those described under the heading Risk Factors in the company's Form 10-K annual report for the year ended December 31, 2020 as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and for the year-end December 31, 2021 and in other documents filed by the company from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission. If the outbreak of COVID-19 is not effectively and timely controlled, our business operations and financial condition may be materially and adversely affected as a result of the deteriorating market outlook for automobile sales, the slowdown in regional and national economic growth, weakened liquidity and financial condition of our customers or other factors that we cannot foresee. Any of these factors and other factors beyond our control could have an adverse effect on the overall business environment, cause uncertainty in the regions where we conduct business, cause our business to suffer in ways that we cannot predict and materially and adversely impact our business, financial condition and results of operations. A prolonged disruption or any further unforeseen delay in our operations…

Certainly. Ladies and gentlemen, the floor is now open for question. [Operator Instructions] Your first question for today is coming from William Gregozeski. Please announce your affiliation then pose your question.

Hey, guys. Did you say that sales in Brazil were up 90% in 2021?

Your question is sales in Brazil, up 90%? You asked why sales up, right?

I guess I wanted to confirm that you guys said it was up 90% and then my follow-ups were going to be how much is that in dollars? And then what are the expectations for that going forward?

[Foreign Language]. Yes in terms of dollars -- the revenue in Brazil -- our revenue in Brazil did experience a robust growth in 2021. In the amount -- the total amount from our Brazil business in 2021 was approximately RMB 164 million or $26 million. That's mainly attributable to our gross in new key accounts. We signed some large customers and looking into 2022, we believe we will have further growth in 2022.

Okay. Great. Great. Did the -- on the EPS products were the margins -- did the margins continue to rise in the fourth quarter? And is that still expected to see margin improvement going through 2022?

Yes. The answer is yes. EPS margin will continue to improve and increase in 2022. We foresee a 20% to 30% volume increase in 2022 and mainly due to very strong demand. And so clearly demand outstripped the supply on the EPS product. So that gave us some good advantage in terms of pricing. And also the -- with the growth of the volume, we are achieving better economy of scale. So, that will also help with our gross margin.

Okay great. What is the -- what is management's outlook for the 2022 year in China alone the domestic market?

Okay. So overall, we see the overall Chinese auto market will experience a slight increase in 2022. Despite the volatility which we expect there will be volatility throughout the course of the year. For example we are already seeing the news of the lockdown in this large city like Shanghai. However, we see Chinese governments are rolling out more favorable policy to stimulate the economy such as cutting the interest rate and there are talks about lowering the taxes and also new policy to help with the property market. And so overall we think the government's policy will offset the challenges and so will give us the whole auto industry a more net-net positive push for 2022. That's why we see a slight increase in 2022 from a year before.

Okay, great. And last question is can you provide a little more detail about the $5.9 million equity in earnings of affiliated gain in the fourth quarter?

[Foreign Language] Okay. That gain was associated with our investment. We have announced in the past years we are -- we invested at three investment funds. Some are early-stage venture funds specialized in automotive space. One of the portfolio company -- there are a number of companies -- a few companies went public since last year and they've done very well. In particular, this one company from the City of Chongqing then went to the tech board. They went IPO on the tech board. And their main business is in the hydrogen technology for the automotive sector which is a very, very hot sector. So, the stock has experienced a very strong growth since their IPO. And so we are indirectly benefiting from it.

Okay. Perfect. Thank you guys.

Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] There are no questions in queue at this time.

Okay. We want to thank everybody for joining us today and please be safe. And we look forward to talking to you in the future.

Thank you ladies and gentlemen. This does conclude today's conference call. You may disconnect your phone lines at this time and have a wonderful day. Thank you for your participation.