HNA Group Announces New Charitable Initiatives Totaling More Than $35 Million

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Celebrates Commitment to Philanthropy at Annual Charity Night Dinner and Releases 2016 Social Responsibility Report

PARIS, June 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- HNA Group, a global Fortune 500 company focused on tourism, logistics, and financial services, on Monday announced more than $35 million in new charitable commitments to programs around the world supporting health care, education, and disaster relief.

The new commitments were spotlighted at HNA Group's annual Charity Night, held this year at the Petit Palais in Paris, France on Monday, June 26.  The event, co-hosted by the Cihang Foundation, also marked the release of HNA Group's 2016 Social Responsibility Report and marked the start of HNA Paris International Week, a week-long series of events hosted by HNA Group to celebrate its global platform.

Since its founding, HNA Group has made approximately $1.5 billion in charitable contributions across a range of initiatives aimed at supporting communities and empowering individuals with the tools and skills necessary to experience all the goodness life offers.

Chen Feng, Chairman of the HNA Group Board of Directors, said, "HNA Group is built on a commitment to giving back and to helping people around the world live better lives.  This week, we are celebrating HNA Group's global achievements and successes, but we have never lost sight of the responsibility we have as global citizens.  I am personally very proud of what HNA Group has achieved over the past 24 years to enrich people's lives and to make the world a better place, and am pleased to continue that momentum tonight."

New Charitable Commitments

HNA Group unveiled the following new programs at its HNA Charity Night:

• Launches Africa Brightness Action Program: Over the past 13 years, HNA Group's Brightness Action campaign has provided free eyesight recovery operations to more than 6,500 patients worldwide.  At HNA Charity Night, HNA Group announced it would be partnering with Orbis International, an international nonprofit that fights blindness around the world, to extend that program into Africa.  HNA Group plans to invest approximately $750,000 over five years to fund recovery operations, train local doctors, and improve ophthalmology in Africa.  The program is expected to help improve the eyesight of 5,000 cataract patients.
• Supports Higher Education in Countries along the "One Belt, One Road:" In cooperation with the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), HNA Group is committed to improving higher education in countries along the "One Belt, One Road," including Morocco, Ghana, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Mauritius. The company plans to invest $5 million over the next five years in higher education programs, with a focus on supporting education in scientific research and engineering.
• Launches Maternal and Infant Health Care Program: HNA Group will invest $25 million over five years to help aid pregnant women and newborns in disadvantaged communities in China, Ethiopia, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Sri Lanka, and Mongolia.  In cooperation with UNICEF, the program will fund the training of obstetricians and obstetric nurses and provide enhancements to local medical facilities in order improve the quality of infant care and neonatal nursing.  The program will also set up technical training and exchange centers in China to export obstetrics rescue experience and technologies to countries along the "One Belt, One Road," and will work with local and international universities to develop teaching and training programs in order to enhance the knowledge of obstetrics worldwide.
• Funds Relief Programs for Syrian Refugees: HNA Group will work with the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) to provide food to refugees in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.  HNA Group will print donation information on airline meal boxes provided by gategroup and other aviation food companies, and has committed to make a contribution to the WFP for each airline meal box sold. Through this program, HNA Group expects to donate $5 million over three years to the WFP, to distribute food to local refugees. 

Publication of 2016 Social Responsibility Report

HNA Group also announced the publication of its 2016 Social Responsibility Report, in Chinese and English.  The report outlines HNA Group's active participation in public welfare programs in health care, poverty alleviation, environmental protection, and other initiatives, and its commitment to contributing to the achievement of the United Nation's 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.  HNA Group has called on the public to reduce carbon emission levels through GRAIN (Green Aviation Initiatives and Networks) and has launched projects to help disadvantaged communities and improve living conditions, health care, and education through a range of global programs, including Brightness Action, Goodness Wells, HNA Sending Love back Home, Nutritious Meals in Schools in Ghana, Change for Good, and others.  The full report is available for download at http://www.hnagroup.com/index.php/CSR/subpage/duty_report.

Fostering Cultural Exchanges

The program at HNA Charity Night celebrated HNA Group's commitment to encouraging cultural exchanges between East and West.  The event featured the renowned children's chorus, Les Choristes, as well as a selection of Peking opera highlights performed by the former players of "Mei Lanfang Classics" from the Zheng Yici Peking Opera Theatre.

About HNA Group

HNA Group is a global Fortune 500 company focused on tourism, logistics and financial services. Since its founding in 1993, HNA Group has evolved from a regional airline based on Hainan Island in southern China into a global company with approximately $145 billion of assets, over $90 billion in annual revenues, and an international workforce of 410,000 employees, primarily across America, Europe and Asia. HNA's tourism business is a fast-growing, vertically-integrated global player with market-leading positions in aviation, hotels and travel services. HNA operates and invests in nearly 3,200 hotels with over 380,000 rooms across major markets, and has 1,250 aircraft carrying nearly 100 million passengers to 270 cities worldwide. HNA's Logistics business is a leader in logistics and supply chain management with capabilities in shipping and equipment manufacturing, maritime transportation, third-party payment platforms and project finance. In financial services, HNA is China's largest non-bank leasing company, and a leading provider of a diverse set of businesses in equipment leasing, insurance, asset management, investment banking and credit services.

SOURCE HNA Group