Strategy of sustainable and profitable growth confirmed.

In 2007 the organizational and strategic choices defined during earlier reviews were again confirmed.
With the new organization for Human Resources, the structuring of our activities into Strategic Business Units and our support functions into Competence Centres and Business Support Centres is now complete.
Our business strategy unambiguously commits the Group to growth on three fronts:

• priority to growth
• in selected areas of pharmaceuticals, chemicals and plastics;
• innovation, the key to growth and to constantly improving competitiveness;
• an expanded presence in Asia, the Americas and Eastern Europe.

These have proved to be wise choices: after strong performances in 2004, 2005 and 2006, the Group again posted excellent results in 2007. These choices have reduced earnings cyclicality, improved the geographic balance of our activities and enabled us to offer regular dividend growth to our shareholders.

We strongly believe that the organization we have put in place, which achieves a good balance between cross-sector processes optimized and managed at the world level and respect for local situations, makes Solvay a multinational, polycultural Group that is effective and attractive to work for, offering every employee opportunities for development.