Nikkei And Tokyo Commodity Exchange To Jointly Manage The New “Nikkei-TOCOM Commodity Index”

Tokyo Commodity Exchange, Inc (“TOCOM” or the “Exchange”), Japan’s largest and Asia’s prominent commodity exchange, and Nikkei Inc. (Nikkei), Japan’s most influential economic daily newspaper, announced today that they have agreed to jointly manage the new “Nikkei-TOCOM Commodity Index”.

As a result of this agreement, the TOCOM Index which has been publicized by TOCOM since July 2006 will change its name to the “Nikkei-TOCOM Commodity Index” as of the April 1, 2009 calculation.

TOCOM and Nikkei are committed to work together in devoting the greatest possible effort to widely promote and establish the Nikkei-TOCOM Index as 1) a benchmark for evaluating investment performance in the commodity futures market of Japan 2) a basis for structuring investment products, and 3) an indicator for developing comprehensive hedging strategies.

The new Nikkei-TOCOM Index will retain continuity from the previous TOCOM Index. For more detailed information on the Index, please refer to: http://www.tocom.or.jp/souba/tocom_index/index.html