TOKYO(January 7, 2003)--Nissho Iwai Corporation, together with Mitsubishi-Hitachi Metals Machinery, Inc. (Head Office: Shiba, Minato-ku, Tokyo; President: Shunichi Miyanaga), will deliver a Sendzimir-type cold rolling mill to Columbus Stainless (Head Office: Middleburg, South Africa), a South African stainless steel plate manufacturer. The order volume will be approximately 3 billion yen for mechanical components, electrical machinery & apparatus and installation work as a complete set.

Columbus Stainless currently has an integrated production plant with electric furnace, hot strip mill and cold rolling mill. Its annual stainless production volume reaches 500,000 tons or more for steel, and 270,000 tons for cold rolling. The newly installed cold rolling mill will enable cold rolling capacity to be boosted to the scale of 400,000 tons per annum.

Through Acerinox (Head Office: Madrid, Spain) becoming a major Columbus Stainless stockholder in January 2002, most of the stainless products manufactured are exported to Asia and the Middle Eastern countries via the Acerinox sales network, to become building materials and home electric appliances. The Acerinox group is a leading stainless manufacturer, which boasts an annual production volume of 2.5 million tons and accounts for approximately 14% of the world's production.

The Sendzimir cold rolling mill is scheduled for installation by fall 2004, with delivery to be accepted in May the following year.