On April 20, Nissho Iwai Corporation and Nissho Iwai American Corporation together invested 2.5 million dollars in Novopoint.com,Inc. (headquartered in Chicago, headed by the president Robert W. Schult) asa foodstuff electronic trading system sales company, which is owned by Cargill,Inc. and two other firms.

Novopoint.com, Inc. was established in March, 2000 jointly by the world' largest grain trader Cargill, Inc., the U.S. venture capital Crosspoint Venture Partners, and electronic trading software developer Ariba, Inc.

Novopoint.com, Inc.' s integrating solutions for order placing and receiving are now employed in North America by about 300 customers major food & beverage suppliers and primary processors of flour, sugar, vegetable oils and isomerized sucrose to create efficient supply chain management systems and CPFR by seamlessly joining them on to the customer's core business operating systems. Novopoint.com, Inc. also has a tie-up with Transora.com, which is a business-to-business Internet marketplace established by 54 U.S major consumer goods suppliers and caters to businesses that handle goods meant for consumers.

This investment, which is the first for Japanese or Asian companies to make in Novopoint.com, Inc. , also includes the agreement that software to be developed by this company may be employed by us to develop similar business models in the Asian region.

Drawing on the occasion of this investment, Nissho Iwai will pursue closer business relationships and alliances with Japan's major food & beverage suppliers and primary food processors and with U.S. food suppliers.