Mr. Nikkaku (right) talks about his resolutions

At the Board of Directors Meeting on March 30, Mr. Akihiro Nikkaku, Executive Vice President of Toray, was appointed as President and COO, which became effective following the resolution at the Board of Directors Meeting held after the Ordinary General Meeting of Shareholders on June 24.

Mr. Akikazu Shimomura, Chairman of the Board, will become Senior Advisor , and Mr. Sadayuki Sakakibara, President, CEO and COO will become Chairman of the Board and CEO.

In his opening speech at the press conference following the Board of Directors Meeting, Mr. Sakakibara reviewed his eight years of management and said, “Through the completion of IT-II in fiscal 2010, Toray will overcome the economic crisis and, from next fiscal year, company management will be able to focus more on our projected medium- and long-term growth strategy. As I believe I have successfully established the way to the path of medium- and long-term growth during my eight-year-presidency, I judged that the time had come to have a new president. From now on, I will support our new president, Mr. Nikkaku, as Chairman of the Board and CEO, and will continue to do my best together with Mr. Nikkaku for the further development of Toray Group.” Mr. Sakakibara also introduced Mr. Nikkaku as “An executivce having intensive top management experience with an overall management perspective and a global business view. As a new president, he will exercise his great leadership for the further growth of the Group.”

Mr. Nikkaku introduced himself and said “I’m having to ready myself to take on such an important and weighty responsibility as president in a difficult time. The first thing I have to do is work on the completion of IT-II. By the end of fiscal 2010, I would like to restructure our profit base to secure our growth plan. In the process, I will aim for the smooth transfer of management.”