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2008 New Year Speech of Mr. Tanaka, President of TBSM

Ladies and Gentlemen, all the colleague at TBSM,
All of you have now started a refreshing new year with the renewed spirit. I would like to say that Tokyo Boeki Ltd. 60th anniversary celebrations last October went well. At the same time Tokyo Boeki Steel & Materials Ltd. passed their 1st anniversary.
This was done thanks to all your great support and those outcomes extended to the company and I, therefore, express my heartfelt appreciation to all of you.

Viewing the new year 2008, I now foresee that the global economy is starting to turn around after the prosperous times of the last couple of years.
In Japan at the beginning of the year, it started in very tough business circumstances by the influence of the sub-prime loan issues in the USA, the global issue of the price hike of raw materials for steel making, the slowdown in housing/ building industries in Japan due to the change of the basic building construction laws.
Under these circumstances, on the first trading day of the year 2008, the NIKKEI average share price fell to the level of \15,000. In the meantime, looking the bilateral relationship between Japan and China, the year 2008 will pass 30th anniversary since signing Japan and China Peaceful and Friendly Corporation Agreement.
At the end of last year, the Prime Minister of Japan, Mr. Fukuda visited China and now it has been planned that Mr. Hu Jintao, the President of China will visit Japan this April, which I think will strengthen the relationship and partnership of the two countries.

Today, I wish to confirm that I lead Tokyo Boeki Steel & Materials Ltd. to act more speedy and more aggressively than last year with the business development focusing on China and other South East Asian countries.
I also confirm that I lead Tokyo Boeki Steel & Materials Ltd. to continuously make the best efforts for making great progress in the Shanxi Jincheng Coal Complex Project and Vietnamese Manganese & Ferro Alloy Development Project in CaoBang Province, Vietnam etc.

I would once again like to ask all of you, your continuous support and cooperation for the remainder of 2008.
I wish all of you and your families a healthy and happy year to come.

Thank you for your attention.