BAE SYSTEMS plc - ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

BAE SYSTEMS plc today holds its Annual General Meeting of shareholders. At the meeting Mike Turner, Chief Executive, will confirm that trading in the first few months of the year has been consistent with the outlook for the Group indicated at the time of the publication of the Report and Accounts. That is, that the underlying trading performance for the company's defence businesses in 2003 is expected to remain broadly in line with that for 2002 before taking account of the exceptional charges in 2002 for the Nimrod and Astute contracts.

Programmes performance is expected to be restrained by low export activity and with production programmes still in early phases of maturity. Restructuring of the Nimrod and Astute contracts is expected to benefit future performance over the long term and good sustained growth is anticipated in UK defence support activity and across the company's operations in North America.

Airbus plans a similar volume of activity for 2003 as for 2002, however the commercial airline market remains difficult to predict.