TOPSTAR(R), Rhone-Poulenc Agro's new rice herbicide, based on the active ingredient oxadiargyl, has been recently registered in India where it will be launched on the market this spring.

TOPSTAR offers Indian growers excellent crop tolerance and satisfactory control of most
rice weeds. An increasing number of growers now prefer easily applied herbicides to the
laborious process of hand weeding. The market launch of TOPSTAR will enable Rhone-Poulenc Agro to enter the rice herbicides market in India - estimated at around 4 million hectares, ie. 10% of the country's rice acreage - which is witnessing one of the world's highest annual growth rates.

Rhone-Poulenc Agro expects that by the year 2003 India will account for around 25% of oxadiargyl sales, as will China, where various formulations of the product have been on the
market since 1997.

This registration follows on from the authorization obtained in Bulgaria in January 1999, the
first in continental Europe, where oxadiargyl, sold under the brand name RAFT(R), was authorized for weed control in sunflowers. This crop covers approximately 200,000 hectares, ie. 10% of the sunflower acreage treated in Eastern Europe.

Marketed primarily under the brand names TOPSTAR and RAFT, oxadiargyl is aimed mainly at the expanding rice herbicide markets of Asia and Latin America, which are respectively the first and second largest rice- growing areas in the world, as well as markets such as sunflower, potato and other vegetable crops throughout the world.

Oxadiargyl is one of the key active ingredients with which Rhone-Poulenc Agro is building its
new product portfolio. The combined sales of newly- launched products should generate additional turnover of almost FF4 billion by the year 2000, FF600 million of which will come from products based on the oxadiazoles family.

Rhone-Poulenc Agro researches, develops and markets products and innovative solutions aimed at improving agricultural production worldwide. Its 1998 turnover stood at FF12.6 billion.

Rhone-Poulenc S.A. (NYSE: RP - news) is a leading life sciences company, growing through
innovations in human, plant and animal health and through its specialty chemicals subsidiary
Rhodia. With sales in 1998 of FF86.8 billion, the company employs 65,000 people in 160 countries worldwide.

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