Mr Ron Chan Tze-ngon, Chairman of TVH noted: "I am delighted to report our investments in ChinaCast has materialized into a successful IPO in Singapore. Drawing on the technological and market niches of business alliances Hughes Network Systems and TVH, ChinaCast has developed rapidly into the leading provider of broadband satellite solutions in the areas of education/training and enterprise networking in China. With the technological support of other TVH units, the Singapore-listed company reported a 74% jump in net profit for the six months ended June 30, 2004 to RMB18.1 million."

Self-service banking enabling and SI arm TopAsia achieved stable growth in the provision of ATM repair and maintenance services to Bank of China (BOC) and the Postal Administration of China. The division has also achieved unprecedented successful tender wins for nearly 400 ATM machines at BOC branches in Henan, Chongqing and Zhejiang. In the annual tender of the China Merchants Bank (CMB), TopAsia secured five of its nine procurement projects, thus retaining its status as the leading service provider and sales agent for CMB's self-service banking centre products.

In addition, TopAsia has renewed all the expired maintenance service contracts previously held by Sequent China before amalgamation. Major clients continue to be reputable financial institutions, primarily BOC, China Construction Bank (CCB), City Commercial Bank and Postal Administration of China.

In the first half, TopAsia also obtained a RMB14 million contract for the provision of peripheral services to Little Smart (or Xiaolingtong) and multi-media workstations, invented and operated by China's renowned IT practitioner UTStarcom. TopAsia will bolster its cooperation with UTStarcom to seize business development opportunities in multi-media development, with a goal to attain RMB40 million of orders this year.

To broaden its product offerings, TopAsia signed an agreement in August 2004 with KEBA, a world-renowned Austria-based CDM manufacturer, for the provision of after-sales installation and maintenance services to KEBA CDMs operated by all branches of CMB in the Mainland.

TVH's software vehicle, 55%-owned Advanced Digital Technology (ADT), was once again named one of China's top 100 software companies in 2004 by the Ministry of Information Industry (MII). As ADT is one of the six designated service providers of integrated data networks for CCB, the division secured business orders from seven of 14 top-line bank branches during the first half of the financial year. In addition, ADT has won the CCB tender for the implementation of a data archive management system, and acted as the service marketer to all of its 39 branches nationwide. The breakthrough development has further reinforced ADT's industry position and helps open up tremendous new business opportunities.

Being one of the selected five network service providers to Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), ADT will continue to provide high-quality network maintenance services to a portfolio of 15 provincial branches. As a Gold Partner awarded by CISCO in June, ADT is able to design more sophisticated network solutions to meet specific customer needs. ADT will continue to strengthen cooperation with Microsoft in software development to expand its solution offerings. The sophisticated AD catalogue project that ADT developed for ICBC in conjunction with Microsoft was presented with a major Microsoft award. The division is also gearing to become an MII certified system integrator in the second half of the year.

ChinaCast's strong performance was driven by significant improvements in revenue from the university distance learning segment, which saw an increase in student enrolment by approximately 51% to 71,000 at 30 June 2004 from 47,000 a year ago.

ChinaCast plans to devote more of its effort to grow its university distance learning solutions segment as there are still a number of universities licensed to conduct distance-learning courses. In addition to seven existing universities, three more universities that have signed up previously are in the student enrolment phase. It also plans to focus on its newly established enterprise networking products and services segment by targeting larger enterprises in China. ChinaCast's first contract in the enterprise segment was concluded with Tai Kang Life Insurance Co. Ltd., one of China's six national life insurers. The project is progressing well and expects to be operational in the third quarter of this year.

About TVH
Technology Venture Holdings Limited (TVH, SEHK: 61) is an information technology enabler focusing its systems-integration and software competencies on the banking, finance and newly emerged education and training sectors. It aspires to be a catalyst to facilitate the development of digital Asia by serving as a value-added bridge of advanced technology from developed economies and e-solutions demands in Asia.

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