Regarding the incident of a group of employees gathered outside our Tuen Mun headquarters this morning, Vitasoy would like to make the following statement.

We at Vitasoy believe that our staff are our greatest asset in ensuring the quality and integrity of our products and services that are now recognized around the world. We are committed to staff training and listening to staff concerns and we closely adhere to Hong Kong labour laws to ensure the fair treatment of all of our staff. As a result, we are immensely proud of the fact that our employees, on average, have a longer tenure at our company, more than 10 years, making us the employer of choice in our industry sector.

We have noted the grievances expressed by the staff concerned this morning and believe these can and should be resolved together through dialog. As a matter of fact, the Labour Department is now helping mediate the matter.

We confirm that the dismissed Vitasoy employee was from the Customer Services section of our Full Service Vending Department. The termination of the employment of the former employee concerned was on 26 June 2008. The individual concerned had a history of disciplinary issues. Prior to the termination of his employment, Vitasoy International had issued two written warning letters to him and had worked proactively to help him improve. Finally, after no significant improvement was found, with his deteriorating working attitude and discipline, we felt there was no alternative but to terminate his employment.

The individual concerned was given the required notice and pay according to the labor laws including notice in-lieu-of notice, long service payment, and leave payment. This is not a situation we like to undertake. However, it is important for the Company to keep up the service quality of its employees and to achieve continuous improvements.

In addition, Vitasoy has circulated an internal memo to all staff to ensure the communication flow.

For media enquiries:
Ms. Stella Lung, Ms. Angela Hui
Public Relations Manager, Ketchum Hong Kong
Vitasoy International Holdings Limited Tel: (852) 3141-8091
Tel: (852) 2468-9644

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