A vote of thanks by Kamran M. Khozan, President CEO of CVMR

20 April 2007, Manila, Philippines

Let me start by thanking Honorable Sec. Gen. Reyes for his leadership, support and the tough due diligence he put our organization through until he and his officials were satisfied that CVMR® was qualified for this permit.
the scrutiny and the process we went through was thorough, and CVMR® is proud to have qualified. In this process, we were impressed by the professionalism, dedication to duty and thoroughness of the executives of the Department of Environment & Natural Resources and all its Bureaus under Gen. Reyes' leadership.

CVMR® is ready, willing and able to start exploration and testing of the sites in Samar as of today. At CVMR® Resources (Philippines) Inc., 96 % of our management and engineers and staff are Filipinos. We are also proud of the fact that in this process we will use all local subcontractors. Our General Manager, Mr. Garzon Duenas is a veteran of mining and refining industry in the Philippines. this project will commence under his management. We are proud to have one of the safest records in our process over the past 25 years with zero accident and absolutely neutral environment environmental impact.

As our presentation to Gen. Reyes indicated, we will be hiring local people immediately and Samar will start experiencing the true economic effect of our presence in that Province very shortly.

I would be remiss if I did not thank the Canadian Foreign Affairs and especially Ambassador Peter Sutherland for his continuous support, advice and hard work on our behalf. We are grateful.