�@Fuji Heavy Industries, Ltd. (FHI), a global manufacturer of transportation and aerospace-related products and the maker of Subaru automobiles, today announced that it has established Subaru Europe N.V./S.A., its wholly-owned subsidiary company that will oversee Subaru's entire European operation. Incorporated with capital of 1,774,000 Euro in Nossegem-Zaventem, Belgium, Subaru Europe will begin its operations on April 1, 2002.

�@Subaru Europe will take on responsibilities that FHI's European Liaison Office and Subaru Parts Europe N.V./S.A. (SPE) had respectively assumed, because those two entities have been incorporated into Subaru Europe. The new company will have a branch office in Ingelheim, Germany, which had been part of the original Liaison Office. Mr. Hiromi Tsukuda, currently the president of both the Liaison Office and SPE, will become the new president of Subaru Europe and will lead a team of 23 employees at the start-up. The company will be responsible for five major areas of work: parts and accessories sales (parts sales, as well as planning, and sales of locally procured parts and accessories); vehicle sales (pan-European new car sales promotion plus handling of Subaru Justy, which is produced at Suzuki's Magyar Plant in Hungary); homologations and certifications (information gathering and follow-up activities); materials and component purchasing (information gathering on procurement, vendor relations); and services (support to distributors, warranty-related work).

�@The establishment of Subaru Europe is part of FHI's efforts to localize operations and to expand its European sales by enhancing its sales network and streamlining its operational capabilities under one umbrella. These measures are also intended to reduce costs by combining European operations that had been split between the Liaison Office and SPE. FHI plans to strengthen Subaru Europe's organization by assigning it strategic planning functions as a challenge to undertake for the future management of the entire pan-European operation.