Fitch: Poland's BGZ's Support Rating Affirmed.

LONDON -- Fitch Ratings, the international rating agency, has today affirmed Bank Gospodarki Zywnosciowej's (Bank for Food Economy, 'BGZ') Support rating at '2'. At the same time Fitch advises that the Support will be changed to '3', if the recently announced partial privatisation of BGZ is completed, as Fitch believes the probability of any external support, were it to be necessary, from the new shareholders (Netherland's Rabobank, rated 'AA+' and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development 'EBRD') will be moderate. The agency does not carry out a full analysis on BGZ and therefore does not assign Long-term, Short-term or Individual ratings.

The current Support '2' rating reflects the bank's public sector ownership and its importance to the agricultural and food economy sector. Although the economic importance of the latter is on the decline, the sector remains politically sensitive. The bank's dominance in this sector, however, has been eroded in recent years through legislation that has allowed independent competition of smaller cooperative banks to build up.

BGZ is expected to issue new shares in 4Q2004, in order to comply with Polish banking supervisors' requirement to boost its capital levels. New shares will be acquired by Rabobank and the EBRD, granting them stakes of respectively 13.8% and 15%. Rabobank's participation in BGZ may be further increased by an acquisition of some shares from co-operative banks, and according to Rabobank, its total stake in BGZ is expected to amount to c.35%, with the Polish State Treasury and the EBRD retaining the remainder. If the ownership structure of the bank is to be modified in the future, Fitch will again review its Support rating.

BGZ was established in 1975 and is currently Poland's 10th largest bank with a network of 270 branches reaching some fairly rural agricultural areas.