Corporate Citizenship

• More about Donation of SGD 72K from Panasonic

• More about Panasonic Scholarship - Celebrating 10th Anniversary

Panasonic Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd. hosted the second regional contest of Kid Witness News (KWN) in Asia Pacific on December 7 in Bangkok, Thailand. Out of six countries' finalists selected from 108 participating schools, Glenwood Public School from Australia was awarded the Grand Winner with a prize of Japan trip. The Glenwood's video will be entered in the competition for the KWN International Award to be announced in the U.S. next year.

As winners of the 2nd KWN Asia/Pacific Regional Contest, representatives from Glenwood Public School of New South Wales, Australia, recently visited Japan. During a week-long visit, they participated in exchanges with a KWN school in Osaka, showing each other videos. They also had a chance to try traditional games and Japanese school lunches.

As a result of the Group-wide campaign to boost support for the tsunami relief, about 290,000 employees around the world contributed over 60 million yen. Combining the contributions from the Group companies, the gift totaled approximately 170 million yen. A portion 48.76 million yen (equivalent to 450 thousand US dollars) was presented to UNICEF in Thailand on February 21, while the rest is distributed through economic federations and other aid organizations.

Panasonic group of companies in Singapore, Indonesia and Philippines recently came together to extend a helping hand to the Hurricane Katriana Relief efforts in the USA. With funding matched by the companies, a total of Singapore Dollars 60,000 was collected from employees.

On Thursday 20 July, Mr. Shinya Abe, Director of Panasonic Asia Pacific, represented the Singapore Group of companies at the cheque presentation ceremony in The Singapore Red Cross Society. On this occasion, Mr. Abe presented the Panasonic donations for the earthquake victims in Indonesia, to Mr Ho Shee Ki, a Board member of the Singapore Red Cross Society. A total of S$65,000.00 were collected for this disaster relief work, including the funds directly sent to the Indonesia Red Cross Society from the branch offices of Panasonic companies in Batam.

Panasonic Scholarship Program was established in 1998 in commemoration of the company's 80th anniversary for the purpose to provide scholarship opportunity to the privately financed students from Asian countries to pursue master's course in Japan. This program offers financial assistance to bring up the highly educated experts who can contribute to the development of their countries in the 21st century and to promote the mutual friendship between their home countries and Japan. Through the application programs in seven countries/area since 1998, 222 people have been awarded as Panasonic Scholars as of April 2006.