Austar Lifesciences Limited provided earnings guidance for the year ending 31 December 2017. For the year, the Group is expected to record a substantial increase in loss attributable to the shareholders of the company as compared to a loss attributable to the shareholders of the Company of approximately RMB 18.7 million for the year ended 31 December 2016. Such loss is mainly attributable to (i) an increase in budgeted costs caused by variations in contract works such as specifications or design requested by customers during project execution and a decrease in revenue mainly due to prolonged execution time for certain projects undertaken by the Group, especially in the Liquid and Bioprocess System segment which is the major revenue contributor of the Group in both 2016 and 2017; (ii) certain projects with lower gross profit margin were executed during the year in an attempt to secure orders for increasing the market share of the bioprocess market as well as retaining long term customers; and (iii) the increase in selling and marketing expenses. Nonetheless, the effect of the above mentioned is partially offset by an increase in revenue and gross profit from the Life Science Consumables segment of the Group.