A Statement From Newmont's Chief Executive Officer

Over the past year, the global economies have experienced some of the most extreme financial events the world has seen. The beginning of the year was punctuated by exceptional metal prices driven by unprecedented demand and oil prices at record highs. By the end of the year, the financial challenge that faced the global economies was also of historic proportion. Through these tumultuous times, Newmont has persevered to fulfill its vision of being the most valued and respected mining company through industry leading performance.

Despite the current strains on global financial markets, Newmont remains well positioned with a strong balance sheet, a disciplined project review and execution process, and a continued focus on the daily operation of our business. Our focus on operational execution continues to yield positive results and continued solid performance. Newmont was the only major gold producer to meet its original outlook in 2008.

Our commitment to sustainability continues to contribute to our business success. One of the greatest challenges that a mining company faces is to ensure the health and safety of our employees and the wider community. I believe we have made some strides with respect to our employees’ safety. Despite our efforts, we feel deeply the recent loss of two of our colleagues, Ron Kean at Carlin in October 2008 and Karen Rosalind Mitchell at KCGM in January 2009. These tragic losses are a sobering reminder that we are not where we need to be when thinking about safety outcomes. In remembering our colleagues, we owe it to them to demonstrate leadership in safety and follow through on our commitment to improve Health and Safety in the workplace. We must continue to focus first and foremost on safety and incorporate it into everything we do.

An independent expert completed at the end of the year a comprehensive review of the relationships we have with the communities that host our mines. The reports of this unprecedented study in the mining industry and the report from the Board of Directors to the stockholders are publicly available. The results of the Community Relationships Review have clearly reinforced our understanding and belief that for Newmont to continue to grow as a company, maintain its production pipeline, and succeed in current and future business operations around the world, we must manage the relationships with communities more effectively.

We have already embarked on incorporating the lessons from the Community Relationships Review into our business. These lessons complement our participation in many of the external initiatives with which we participate. We remain steadfastly committed to the United Nations Global Compact. This report presents the work undertaken across the company that fulfills our commitment to the Global Compact.

During 2008, we completed training of all our employees pursuant to the World Economic Forum’s Partnering Against Corruption Initiative (PACI). We were again selected to the prestigious Dow Jones Sustainability World Index (DJSI-World), which reflects our employees' dedication to operating our business in an environmentally sound, economically efficient and socially sustainable way.

Although we joined the discussion on Climate Change only recently, we are proud to have been one of the first 100 companies to have become signatory to the Climate Registry. The Carbon Disclosure Projects leadership rankings recognized Newmont as the top gold company. We have a dedicated staff now focused on executing our greenhouse gas strategy.

Newmont has continued to engage in the global dialogue on Human Rights. We actively participate in the Voluntary Principles on Human Rights, originally convened by the governments of United States and United Kingdom. Beginning in 2007 and throughout 2008, Newmont participated in the first mediated dialogue between participants of the Voluntary Principles for Security and Human Rights. The dialogue came about as the mutually agreed response to a complaint brought against the conduct of security services at our Yanacocha operation in Peru.

Only by being an employer of choice can Newmont attract the best and the brightest. We strive to retain talent by making our success and that of our employees a mutual goal. Over the past few years, we have greatly enhanced the career development framework to better assist employees in reaching their full potential. To that end, during 2008, we established the Leadership Pipeline to develop strong leaders, who are prepared to live our values, leverage opportunities, manage challenges, and coach and mentor others.

Each day, we are given the opportunity to rededicate ourselves, at work and in our personal lives, and make a difference. We truly believe our 35,000 employees are our greatest assets. We will stay on the road to success by ensuring that each of us knows where we are today, where we aspire to go and the steps we must take to get there. In early 2009, our leadership reaffirmed this commitment by modifying the company’s mission statement to state, “We will build a sustainable mining business that delivers top quartile shareholder returns while leading in safety, environmental stewardship and social responsibility.”

Details of our approach to sustainability can be found in this report. We believe the report provides a balanced and reasonable representation of our economic, environmental and social performance.