Message from the President

	Representative Director & President Katsumasa Inoue

Nikko Shoji is a dedicated trading company and the Group member of the Nippon Mining & Metals Co., Ltd., which engages in a wide field of business operations ranging from the resource development, through the smelting and refining of nonferrous metals, the metal manufacturing, the production of electronic materials, and nonferrous metal recycling. As the trading arm of the Group, Nikko Shoji works to expand the Group’s reach and discover new business opportunities, and we actively pursue our corporate activities both within Japan and overseas.

Management Principles
While fulfilling the diverse range of functions expected of a trading company, the management of Nikko Shoji aims to achieve excellent levels of business performance, thereby raising its enterprise value. At the same time, in clear recognition of our social responsibilities, we aim to make a significant contribution to the sustainable development of society, and to conduct the management of the Company in such a way as to fully satisfy the expectations of the stakeholders, i.e., our customers, employees, the shareholders, and the regional communities in which we operate.

Management Focuses
In line with our Management Principles described above, we trade in a wide range of items such as: manufactured metal products like phosphor bronze, nickel silver, and stainless steel; chemicals such as sulfuric acid and cleaning agents; ingots of metals such as copper and zinc; new materials like rare metals, metallic powder, copper foil, and sputtering target materials; surface finishing agents, including plating solutions and plating agents; and scrap metal and other recyclable industrial materials. We place particular priority on the following points in our daily activities:

• Finding ourselves in a rapidly changing business climate, we aim at enhancing our corporate value by going back to the basics and fortifying our selling and marketing power through the improvement of our staff's capacity.
• Always keeping in mind the principle of “the customer comes first,” we work constantly to speedily identify newly emerging user needs, and employ our expertise as a trading company to devise optimal solutions to these needs.
• In addition to the conventional services expected of a trading company, including marketing, provision of trade credits, logistics services, and import/export services, we also help our customers develop new businesses, introduce new products from other companies or assist in in-house product development, and arrange and coordinate a variety projects.
• We also take advantage of our position as a maker-affiliated trading company to accumulate an impressive fund of technological know-how, which we utilize to raise the value-added of our trading company services.
• We aim to expand our geographical area of operations overseas, particularly in Southeast Asia.
• We ensure that our system of internal controls works effectively at all times, enforcing compliance with the law and other applicable regulations, as well as observance of the high ethical standards expected of us by the general public.