Aichi, Japan, May 27, 2005—Toyoda Gosei Co., Ltd., (president: Takashi Matsuura) announced today the establishment of a new plant for body sealing and safety system products on the premises of the former seamless steel pipe plant of Nippon Steel Corporation’s Yawata Works in the city of Kitakyusyu, Fukuoka Prefecture. The Toyoda Gosei Kitakyusyu plant was set up to ensure the production and supply system and improve distribution efficiency in response to the increase in production at Toyota Motor Kyusyu Co., Ltd. (president: Watanabe Kenkou). Scheduled to commence operations in September 2005, the new plant will perform the final processing for connecting body-sealing products such as glass runs, opening trim, door weather strips, etc.; and they will also assemble such safety system products as steering wheels and airbag modules.

Total investment is approximately 800 million yen with 520 million yen allocated for FY 2005. The facility, which will be rented from Nippon Steel Corporation in order to control investment expenditures, will have about 5,000 m2 of space at the start of production and is expected to expand to 10,000 m2 by the end of FY 2006. The new plant is projected to hire approximately 70 employees with sales forecasts of approx. 1 billion yen for FY 2005. By FY 2007, the workforce is projected to expand to approximately 180 with a sales target of approximately 11 billion yen.