ITOCHU Corporation (headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo; Keita Ishii, President & COO; hereinafter “ITOCHU”) announced today that it has started an activity of donating picture books for children in foreign languages to Shiga Prefectural Library as one of its community contribution activities for Shiga prefecture, where ITOCHU was founded.

With a concentration of industrial product manufacturing factories drawn by its abundant water sources and good access to urban areas, more than 30,000 foreign nationals live (*1) in Shiga prefecture. Even counting only elementary and junior high school students with entirely overseas roots, more than 1,500 children live in Shiga (*2). 　

Hearing from Shiga Prefectural Library that it is difficult to obtain picture books in foreign languages to meet the strong demand, ITOCHU has collected contributions for 326 books in 18 languages from 23 facilities in 22 countries around the world, tapping its global network, and has donated them to the library. Shiga Prefectural Library has set up a special exhibition space for the picture books in foreign languages as "Christmas Presents from ITOCHU" since December 4.

As its basic activity guidelines on social contribution, ITOCHU has set "Growth of next generations" and "Community contribution" and will continue to donate foreign-language picture books to Shiga Prefectural Library.