(17 December 2012 – Hong Kong) New World Department Store China Limited (“NWDS” or the “Company”; Hong Kong stock code: 825), one of the largest owners and operators of department stores in the PRC, is delighted to announce Finnish Santa Claus will be in town and appear in selected NWDS stores this Christmas. Toegther with the large scale Christmas decoration displayed in stores located in five major cities and the nationwide Christmas-themed marketing activities, NWDS is well prepared to share the festive joy together with customers. 

This Christmas, customers can fulfill their dreams to meet with Finnish Santa Claus face to face without the hassle to travel to Finland. NWDS has especially invited six genuine Santa Claus from Finland (currently there are only 50 registered Finnish Santa Claus in the world) to visit 12 NWDS stores in Shanghai, Wuhan, Shenyang, Chengdu, Chongqing and Xi'an respectively, where they will take part in the Santa Claus parade, give away presents, and even invite children to give Christmas choir song performances in specific timeslot from 21 December onwards. In addition, the above stores specially arranged a series of interactive activities with the Santa. For example, Shenyang Zhonghua Road Branch Store and Shenyang Jianqiao Road Branch Store will arrange Santa to host lucky draws, VIP customers of Shanghai Pujian Store and Xi'an Store will have the opportunity to take picture with Santa and make their X’mas wish with any purchase. For the six stores in Wuhan, customers will be invited to a big Christmas feast with Santa, while Chengdu Store and Chongqing Store will invite VIP members, Mini-blog fans to Finnish Santa Claus welcome party and invite children to give Christmas choir song performances led by Santa respectively. During the event period, the stores will also give away more than 1,100 prizes including China and Finland round-trip tickets, rare Finnish reindeer skins, Finnish Santa Claus congratulatory letters and Finnish Santa Claus passports.

Besides inviting the Finnish Santa Claus to stores, the Company also made much efforts on Christmas decoration this year. Themed Christmas democration have been on display at five stores─Shanghai Pujian Store, Wuhan Qiaokou Branch Store, Shenyang Jianqiao Road Branch Store, Mianyang Store and Xi’an Store. This year’s democration theme, “Christmas GAGA’s Lapland Tour", was inspired by the Santa Claus Village in Laplan, Finland and was built imitating the Santa Claus Office. The Santa Claus Office is surrounded by 20 cute and lively GAGA cartoons, the mascot of NWDS which transformed into Nordic elves, representing the Company steps towards a prosperous 20th anniversary. Attached with the X’mas display, Mailboxes, which look exactly the same as those in the Santa Claus Village, are hanged onto the democration to collect customers’blessings to their friends and family  and NWDS will help to spread the messages further afterwards. According to the Christmas legend, Santa reads letters from all over the world and receive tourists at his Finland office. Now customers can simply go to NWDS stores for a special visit to the Santa Claus’ office and get the chance to meet and take photos with the Finnish Santa Claus, experiencing a fairy dreamy Christmas with their beloved ones.

Mr. Philip Cheung, Managing Director and Executive Director of NWDS said, “Christmas is a very important joyful festival to all, the Company attachs strong emphasis on the Christmas  activities and decoration arrangements every year, so as to create a unique shopping experience for our customers. This year we aimed to create a Chinese version Santa Claus Village with a thorough planning on both festive figure invitation and decomation design, dedicating a Scandinavian Christmas to our customers. This is the third extensive festival decoration promotions since the launch of unified theme Christmas decoration in 2010. We hope that our decoration can bring refreshments to our customers every year, making NWDS the best destination for leisure shopping and festive celebration to all.”

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