Noble Reports $61 Million Net

HONG KONG - Feb 18/04 - SNS -- Noble Group Limited reported net earnings of U.S. $61 million on sales of $4.4 billion for the fiscal year ending December 31.

Both numbers showed a dramatic increase from the 2020 fiscal year, when earnings came in at $33 million on sales of $2.96 billion.

Noble said 2003 was a good year even though "it started with numerous difficulties affecting global markets, most especially the war in Iraq and the economic dislocation created by SARS. Looking at our results for the entire year it is difficult to remember how dire conditions sometimes seemed early on. However, during the year, two fundamental phenomena, unaffected by the war and SARS, drove our performance."

The company said on a macro level, commodity markets in general firmly entered a bull market cycle with the growing weight of demand from China and other developing economies now beginning to affect the global supply/demand equation for agricultural and industrial commodity products.

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