UET United Electronic Technology AG launches new business area for sustainability and takes over plantation in Africa

UET United Electronic Technology AG (ISIN: DE000A0LBKW6), Eschborn, is opening a new business area for capturing and storage of carbon dioxide (CO₂) and production of biological energy sources and takes over the majority in a plantation for sustainable forestry. For this purpose the UET is aquiring a 51% stake in the African Plantation for Sustainable Development (APSD Ltd), based in Ghana, Africa. The UET Group will become the majority owner of a plantation currently covering 32,000 hectares (ha) or 320 square kilometers (km²) with the option to expand this area in the coming years. Sustainable reforestation has been carried out for about 10 years on around 9,000 hectares already. Indigenous trees are currently being reforested on another 10,000 hectares.

To fully digitalize the business process, the UET Group will build a private 5G network on the 32,000 hectares to fully cover the plantation. Sensors will be deployed and connected to applications with artificial intelligence in an autonomous drone system to completely cover the entire area, through the private 5G infrastructure. This creates real-time data about environnmental and plant conditions, processing and growth parameters. The data is automatically evaluated in a monitoring system to detect and prevent bush fires.

The application will be the largest private 5G network in the world and is intended to set new standards in terms of digitization and application in agriculture and forestry.

The UET will continue intensive reforestation on the entire 32,000 hectares and, as part of sustainable forestry, capture carbon dioxide (CO₂) and produce sustainable energy sources and fuels from the biomass. This initiates and builds a future-oriented business with strong growth potential in the Sustainability & Circular Economy business segment, that was launched a year ago by the UET Group.

In addition, the takeover provides the opportunity to make CO₂ capturing and storage possible directly and within the UET and thereby secure the company´s own goals for achieving climate neutrality. This option will also be offered to telecommunications customers.

“At the beginning of September 2023 at the climate summit in Nairobi, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called on the G20 countries to take responsibility and help Africa transform into a superpower in renewable energies. We as the UET Group are now making a contribution to this and are planning a flagship project on 32,000 hectares, an area the size of the entire city of Munich. We make sustainability a business!” says Werner Neubauer, CEO of the UET Group.

To develop the new business area, investments in the mid double-digit million euro range will be invested over the next years and will contribute to sustainable growth for the UET Group over the next years.

"The acquisition of the majority stake in APSD in Ghana is a big and new step for us and at the same time a logical and serious further development of our company. Our efforts towards climate neutrality are thereby given economic importance and our decades of expertise in building communication networks helps us in the implementation. The developments will also trigger new innovations at our customers” adds Werner Neubauer.

Market research firm MarketsandMarkets predicts the private 5G network market will grow from $2 billion to $11.8 billion from 2023 to 2028. The share of networking and digitalization in vertical segments represents the largest growth driver.

The ecological storage of CO₂, internationally referred to as CCS (Carbon Capturing and Storage), is considered a growth market and will grow to USD 32 billion according to GMI - Global Market Insights. The market research company Polaris predicts that the market for sustainable energy sources and fuels made from biomass such as biomethanol will triple to USD 100 billion by 2030.

About UET United Electronic Technology AG

UET United Electronic Technology AG is an international technology company with hardware, software and service systems to build and operate telecommunications networks for secure, energy-efficient and sustainable digitalization. Sustainability is a central part of the business model. The UET Group is the only company in the industry with an own value chain with research and development, manufacturing, service and sustainable agriculture for climate-neutral operations. The product portfolio includes network equipment, CO2 storage and the production of bioenergy sources. Systems and services are used by customers including Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telecom Italia, A1 Telekom Austria and América Móvil. The UET Group is the only international system supplier for critical communications infrastructure with European research, development and production and headquarters in Germany. The UET Group has been listed on the German stock exchange since 2006. 250 employees in eight countries generated sales of around 60 million euros with annual growth of 20 percent.

Contact:

UET United Electronic Technology AG

D-65760 Eschborn, Frankfurter Straße 80-82

Sebastian Schubert, Investor Relations

Tel: + 49 (0) 6196 7777550

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