Our Communication on Progress relating to the 9 UN Global Compact Principles in 2003 demonstrates our active committment to and our performance against those Principles through the way in which they are internalised within Rio Tinto''s Statement of Business Practice-The way we work-and the open and extensive scope of our performance reporting as evidenced by the Communication. In our Communication on Progress, we have included a table highlighting the policies and programmes in place at a Rio Tinto corporate level to support the nine principles of the Global Compact, and providing an update of progress made against these Principles in 2003.

Rio Tinto''s support for UN Global Compact with its weblink is specifically referred to in The way we work, which is available to all employees worldwide and translated into 18 different languages.Our social and environmental review website references our performance against the UN Global Compact Principles and provides a hyperlink to the Compact website.

Rio Tinto''s Human rights guidance document for managers on implementing the human rights policy contained in The way we work specifically refers to the UN Global Compact and to the Secretary-General''s statements made therein.

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We plan to make the Communication on Progress one of our annual reporting regimes for future years. We are committed to continually improving our performance and the Communication on Progress will help us to guage and direct our efforts to do so.