(English translation) October 26, 2004 Comprehensive Business Alliance with China Pacific Insurance Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Co., Ltd. ("MSI") (President Uemura Hiroyuki) and China Pacific Insurance , one of the major insurers in China, have agreed to form a business alliance in a broad span of operations. For China is a promising market, under this alliance, these two will not only contribute each other, bringing competitive strength together from both sides to the operations such as underwriting, product development and accident handling. But also the alliance is looking forward to offering quality services across China by building a partnership ranging widely, including cultivating jointly local markets. Until now, there has never been such a case that a major Chinese insurance company and foreign one enter into so global an alliance as this. 1. Summary of the Alliance (1) Partners:   • China Pacific Insurance (Group) Co., Ltd.(CPIC Group)(Chairman Wan Guo Liang), the holding company , and • China Pacific Property Insurance Co., Ltd.(CPIC Property)(Chairman Xia Lin), non-life insurer under the holding company   < Profile: CPIC > • In April 1991, CPIC was initially organized as a general insurance unit of Bank of Communication in Shanghai. • In 2001, it was divided into a non-life insurer named CPIC Property and a life one namedChina Pacific Life Insurance Co. Ltd., and they came under a newly established holding company in accordance with the national policy separation of life and non-life insurances. • The aggregate number of the CPIC employees is about 35,000, and its total assets amount to 144.7 billion yuan. Capital is 4.3 billion yuan (about 58 billion yen) at CPIC Group. Its non-life insurance arm, CPIC Property, is the second largest with 2,452 million yuan (about 3.3 billion yen) in terms of capital in the industry. (2) Scope of the alliance   The particular fields to be focused on in collaboration with CPIC Group and CPIC Property are as below;   • CPIC Group: reinsurance, staff training, investment and fund management, etc., and • CPIC Property: underwriting, product development, joint market research, accident handling, risk management, etc. 2. Background to the Alliance We at MSI have been vigorously expanding in China, opening a branch and nine representative offices, including Shanghai Branch.* This is a top-class office network among foreign insurance companies there. However, we have come to a conclusion that we need a strong Chinese business partner in order not to miss the high tide of the market whose premiums have been growing more than ten percent annually and to ensure quality services for customers, particularly Japanese corporations, who tend to be scattering country-wide. < * note > MSI's office network in China A branch and nine representative offices are namely; Shanghai Branch, China General Representative Office(Beijing), Dalian, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Tianjin, Chengdu, Suzhou, Hangzhou and Qingdao Representative Offices.