Christmas is truly the season of giving and this year’s Christmas Light-Up theme, ‘The Greatest Gift’, embodies that the most treasured gifts are the moments of happiness with loved ones that money cannot buy. Decked out in colourful festive lights featuring adorable little Santas and gift boxes, Orchard Road was transformed into a festive display from November 16 to January 1, to welcome the holiday season.

For the 29^th consecutive year, the Hitachi Group of Companies in Singapore was proud to come together as “One Hitachi” and continue to be the main sponsor of this annual light-up event at this shopping heaven in Singapore. This yearly sponsorship is tied to our annual donation to the Community Chest where our past contributions have gone towards helping over 80 charity organizations to empower the lives of those in need. This reflects our commitment to the society as a responsible corporate citizen and echoes our global message of “Hitachi Social Innovation is POWERING GOOD” – to brighten up the world and make it a better place.

This year, the switch-on ceremony took place on November 16 at Ngee Ann City Civic Plaza, and was officiated by Halimah Yacob, the President of Singapore. Kosuke Horiuchi, Managing Director of Hitachi Asia Ltd., addressed the audience to express our commitment to power good and do ‘good things for people throughout the world’. He also explained how Hitachi has been working with partners and customers to help create a better society through our various projects in Singapore.

After the speech, Kojin Nakakita, Chairman of Hitachi Asia Ltd., and Managing Director Horiuchi represented the Hitachi Group of Companies to present a cheque of S$230,000 to Community Chest. The main highlight of the evening was the moment when Chairman Nakakita, together with President Halimah and other distinguished guests, went on stage to initiate the countdown to switch on the lights stretching across 3.88km.

We were honoured to be graced with the presence of our many key stakeholders and business partners at the ceremony, including Ambassador Jun Yamazaki from the Embassy of Japan in Singapore, representatives from The Japanese Association, Frasers Property Limited, Nikkei Group Asia, Sompo Insurance Singapore and top management of Hitachi Group Companies.

As Hitachi faithfully spreads the Christmas cheer through 29 years of sponsorship, we continue to reaffirm our commitment to the community by co-creating solutions to do good and improve the quality of life for the people in Singapore.