China Southern Airlines Company Limited Class H (ZNHH) Risk Analysis

CSAH will continue to be our controlling shareholder. CSAH and certain of its affiliates will continue to provide certain important services to us, including advertising services, provision of air ticket sales services, property management services, leasing of properties and financial services. The interests of CSAH may conflict with those of our Group. In addition, any disruption of the provision of services by CSAH's affiliates or a default of CSAH on its obligations owed to our Group could affect our operations and financial condition. In particular, as part of our cash management system, we periodically place certain amount of demand deposits after independent shareholders' approval with SA Finance, a PRC authorized financial institution controlled by CSAH and one of our associates. We have taken certain measures to monitor the fund flows between us and SA Finance and the placement of funds by SA Finance. Such monitoring measures may help to keep our deposits with SA Finance safe. In addition, we have received a letter of undertakings from CSAH dated March 31, 2009, in which, among other things, CSAH warranted that our deposits and loans with SA Finance were secure and that SA Finance would continue to operate in strict compliance with the relevant rules and regulations. However, the deposits may be exposed to risks associated with SA Finance's business over which we do not have control. As of December 31, 2017 and 2018, we had deposits of RMB6,095 million and RMB5,583 million, respectively, with SA Finance.

The current tax law generally provides for a withholding tax on dividends paid by a Chinese company to a non-resident enterprise at a rate of 10%. Caishui Notice [2014] No. 81 provides that, "for dividends derived by Mainland individual investors from investing in H Shares listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange through Shanghai Hong Kong Stock Connect, H-Share companies shall apply to the China Securities Depository and Clearing Corporation Limited (CSDC). CSDC shall provide the list of Mainland individual investors to H-Share companies who shall withhold individual income tax at a tax rate of 20%. For Mainland securities investment funds investing in shares listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange through Shanghai Hong Kong Stock Connect, the above rules shall also apply and individual income tax shall be levied on dividends derived therefrom." Caishui Notice [2014] No. 81 further provides that, "dividends derived by Mainland enterprise investors from investing in shares listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange through Shanghai Hong Kong Stock Connect shall be included in their gross income and subject to enterprise income tax. For dividends derived by Mainland enterprises where the relevant H Shares have been continuously held for no less than 12 months, enterprise income tax may be exempt according to the tax law. H-Share companies listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange shall apply to CSDC to obtain the list of Mainland enterprise investors from CSDC. H-Share companies are not required to withhold income tax on dividends to Mainland enterprise investors which shall report the income and make the tax payment by themselves." In addition, to date, relevant tax authorities have not collected capital gains tax on the gains realized upon the sale or other disposition of overseas shares in Chinese enterprise held by foreign individuals. If relevant tax authorities promulgate implementation rules on the taxation of capital gains realized by individuals upon the sale or other disposition of the shares, individual holders of the shares may be required to pay capital gains tax.

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission, or the SEC, as required by Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, adopted rules requiring every public company, including us, in the United States to include a management report on such company's internal control over financial reporting in its annual report, which contains management's assessment of the effectiveness of the company's internal control over financial reporting. In addition, our independent registered public accounting firm is required to report on the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting. Since 2011, in accordance with the Basic Standard for Enterprise Internal Control jointly issued by the Ministry of Finance, China Securities Regulatory Commission ("CSRC") and other three PRC authorities on May 22, 2008, and its application guidelines and other relevant regulations issued subsequently (collectively, "PRC internal control requirements") , we have carried out a self-assessment of the effectiveness of its internal control and issued a self-assessment report annually in accordance with the PRC internal control requirements, and our auditor for our PRC GAAP financial statements (the "PRC Auditor") is required to report on the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting. However, our independent registered public accounting firm or PRC Auditor may not be satisfied with our internal controls, the level at which our controls are documented, designed, operated and reviewed. Our independent registered public accounting firm or PRC Auditor may also interpret the requirements, rules and regulations differently, and reach a different conclusion regarding the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting. Although our management have concluded that our internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2018 was effective, we may discover deficiencies in the course of our future evaluation of our internal control over financial reporting and may be unable to remediate such deficiencies in a timely manner. If we fail to maintain the adequacy of our internal control over financial reporting, we may not be able to conclude that we have effective internal control over financial reporting on an ongoing basis, as required under the above mentioned rules and regulations. Moreover, effective internal control is necessary for us to produce reliable financial reports and is important to prevent fraud. As a result, our failure to achieve and maintain effective internal control over financial reporting could result in the loss of investor confidence in the reliability of our financial statements, which in turn could harm our business and negatively impact the trading prices of our ADSs, H Shares or A Shares.

We have, and will continue to have a substantial amount of debt, lease and other obligations in the future. As of December 31, 2018, our current liabilities exceeded our current assets by RMB59,615 million. We generated net cash inflow from operating activities of RMB17,732 million and RMB15,388 million for the years ended December 31, 2017 and 2018, respectively. However, our substantial indebtedness and other obligations may negatively impact our liquidity in the future. In addition, we have significant committed capital expenditures in the next three years, mainly due to aircraft acquisition. In 2018 and thereafter, our liquidity is primarily dependent on our ability to maintain adequate cash inflow from operations to meet our debt obligations as they fall due, and our ability to obtain adequate external financing to meet our committed future capital expenditures. If our operating cash flow is materially and adversely affected by factors, such as increased competition, significantly reduced demand for our services, or significantly increased jet fuel prices, our liquidity would be materially and adversely affected. Moreover, we may not be able to meet our debt obligations as they fall due and commit further capital expenditures if certain assumptions about the availability of external financing on acceptable terms are inaccurate. If we are unable to obtain adequate financing for our capital requirements, our liquidity and operations would be materially and adversely affected. As of December 31, 2018, we had committed banking facilities with several PRC commercial banks for providing loan financing up to approximately RMB243,910 million, of which approximately RMB193,871 million was unutilized. Our directors believe that sufficient financing will be available to our Group in 2019. However there can be no assurance that such loan financing will be available on terms acceptable to our Group or at all.