New Year's Message from President Akihisa Fujinuma

I would like to extend my sincere wishes to everyone for a Happy New Year.

Recently, the Japanese economy has been going through its longest period of growth after World War II, surpassing the period of the Izanagi economic boom (1965 to 1970). Corporate moves to increase capital investments have also continued to be active. To sustain this long-lasting growth, increasing importance will be given to corporate activities to further build trust and underscore growth capabilities such as ensuring compliance with applicable laws and rules and becoming highly cost competitive. In addition to the private sector, we will see similar moves in the public sector, in which self-innovation will be promoted to review the sharing of roles with the private sector and to guarantee greater accountability to citizens. By providing specific and effective solutions predicated on accurate navigation, NRI strongly endorses these moves by companies and the public sector to achieve further growth and implement self-reform.

In 2007, companies will face further toughened requirements for compliance with standards and regulations, and the development of internal control mechanisms will become one of the major issues in corporate activities. The NRI Group will provide consulting, system solutions and a variety of services to support these activities to improve methods of internal management and to comply with all regulations.

We also believe that companies and government organizations will accelerate their moves to outsource operations other than core business/activities in an attempt to become more competitive and efficient, and to attain further growth. Our new data center, which is scheduled to be completed in the fall of this year, will augment NRI's group-wide activities to meet these outsourcing needs.

Because of the strong trends among companies in investing in information systems, the information service industry is expected to continue to enjoy favorable winds in 2007. Nevertheless, the NRI Group believes that measures to secure further growth in the future are extremely important even under such favorable circumstances. Based on this thinking, the NRI Group intends to strengthen its activities to improve the underlying operational framework and to expand the business infrastructure to attain growth from the mid- and long-term perspectives.

In addition, we will endeavor to take measures for our employees to create a comfortable and rewarding working environment. For example, we are implementing a Smart Work Style Campaign to improve the environment to help our female employees as well as all employees raising children work comfortably and engage in creative and worthwhile activities.

We will continue to increase their level of expertise and work to maintain their high level of professionalism. In pursuit of our goal of "Dream up the future" and as part of our mission of navigating future society and providing solutions, the NRI Group is firmly committed to supporting the efforts of our clients as they implement reforms to achieve successful growth strategies.
I am resolutely committed to leading our activities in meeting these challenges.