MICHAEL CRONIN RE-ELECTED CHAIRMAN FOOD PACKAGING EUROPE ASSOCIATION

30 June 2008

Alcan Packaging, part of Rio Tinto Alcan, is pleased to announce that Michael Cronin, president, Alcan Packaging Food Europe has been re-elected chairman of the Flexible Packaging Europe (FPE) association for a second consecutive year. FPE's main goal is to promote the flexible packaging industry in Europe.

One of Michael Cronin's priorities as chairman of the FPE will be for the association to take a leading position on sustainability. Speaking at the FPE annual conference, Cronin emphasised the important role the association plays in responding to European Commission demands on food contact issues for flexible packaging and its strong commitment to support the Commission driven FACET (Flavours, Additives and Contact Material Exposure Task) project.

"We must make certain that everyone understands the critical job flexible packaging plays in the protection of food and many other products," said Cronin. "We must also highlight the important role we play in reducing the resources consumed by our industry, a role achieved through food preservation thereby reducing food waste, and through substantial material usage reduction programmes implemented by FPE members," he added.

Flexible Packaging Europe was founded in 1998 (under the name Euroflex) and its core business is to represent the European flexible packaging industry at a European level, dealing with all kinds of issues relevant to the industry, most notably food contact and environmental issues.

Alcan Packaging Food Europe, a business of Alcan Packaging, is the European leader in flexible packaging for the food and beverages market. Alcan Packaging Food Europe registered sales of $US2.3 billion in 2007. It operates 31 plants in 18 countries and employs 7,300 people.

Alcan Packaging is a world leader in value-added specialty packaging. It delivers multi-material innovative solutions to customers around the world for the food, pharmaceutical, beauty and tobacco markets.  With 128 facilities and 30,000 employees in 31 countries, it generated US$6.2 billion revenues in 2007. For more information, please visit http://www.alcanpackaging.com/.

About Rio Tinto

Rio Tinto is a leading international mining group headquartered in the UK, combining Rio Tinto plc, a London and NYSE listed company, and Rio Tinto Limited, which is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange.

Rio Tinto's business is finding, mining, and processing mineral resources. Major products are aluminium, copper, diamonds, energy (coal and uranium), gold, industrial minerals (borax, titanium dioxide, salt, talc) and iron ore. Activities span the world but are strongly represented in Australia and North America with significant businesses in South America, Asia, Europe and southern Africa.

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