Happy New Year to all of you ! I thank our CEO, Mr. Okamoto, for giving me an occasion to deliver a message to our site visitors.

For middle sized merchant ship builders like Kyokuyo, the passed year was a good year, as we could enjoy a dramatic resurgence of market activities driven by the continued needs of large bulk carriers and tankers.

Thanks to a strong building requirement, Kyokuyo was able to secure, in 2004, a substantial number of orders which will keep us busy until middle of 2008. It is my first experience, in my more than 10 years of selling newbuilding ships, to have a sufficient backlogs to cover 3 years and a half. While I would like to thank all who support our company, I also feel our market strategy targeting certain niche markets is finally bearing the first flavorful fruits after being implemented in 1999.

And in 2005, we have set ourselves 3 challenges.

1) Further improvement in manufacturing quality

• The hot and humid climate in Japanese summer is not the ideal environment for shipbuilding. In particular, we care its influence on the coating condition of ballast tanks, which finally may ultimately the safety and the length of life of a vessel. In 2005, we plan to build a fully air-conditioned block painting factory. We expect that this investment will help both of us and owners precisely control the process and the quality of our products. We hope to announce the detailed building schedule very shortly.

• We will add new values and ideas to our popular product line. By utilizing our technologies that have been accumulated through our experiences in building multi-purpose cargo vessels for European customers, our design team will retouch the existing ship models for optimized performance. The new line will be offered as "mark II" versions.

• The city of Simonoseki, where we are located, is known to be sensitive to environmental concerns. It has one of the most strict garbage separation/recycling rules in Japan, for instance. Falling in line with the city's vision, we will make our utmost efforts to minimize the amount of waste we produce. One approach is to cooperate with suppliers in changing method of packing. Further, we will place strict controls on garbage separation and raise employees' awareness of environmental issues.