On the afternoon of March 2, Prince William, Duke of Cambridge of the UK, showed up in the Long Museum of Shanghai after visiting Beijing, and attended the the Great Festival of Creativity, which is the highlight of the China-Britain Culture Year, thereby opening a new chapter for the historical and cultural exchanges between the two nations.

During the visit, Prince William met with Chairman of Sanpower Group Yuan Yafei, and conducted in-depth exchanges with the latter on the acquisition of House of Fraser by Sanpower Group holding Nanjing Cenbest and HOF's future development.

William looks forward to cooperation between enterprises of the two countries

Prince William saluted the guests present in standard Chinese, saying that even though it was less than 24 hours since he came to China, he had deeply felt China's open-mindedness and enthusiasm, as well as the Sino-British friendship.

Commenting on his friendly meeting President Xi Jinping as well as the experience of visiting the Forbidden City, Williams said he personally appreciated the similarity of the two countries; that is, both China and the UK boast a pride-taking time-honoured history.

"I am very happy to open the Great Festival of Creativity, through which the UK looks forward to the innovation of cooperation with China." Prince William looked forward to cooperation between enterprises of the two countries.

William has his heart in the UK's time-honoured department store

After a short speech and tour around the Museum, Prince William met Chairman of Sanpower Group Yuan Yafei in the company of Lord Livingston, Minister of State for UKTI.

In April 2014, Sanpower Group holding Nanjing Cenbest acquired House of Fraser, a 165-year old department store in the UK, which is also the oldest department store authorised by the royal family. Hence, the acquisition has drawn keen attention in the UK.

Prince William thanked Sanpower Group and Yuan Yafei for the contributions they've made to promoting Sino-British non-governmental exchanges and strengthening the Sino-British economic and trade relations.

As regards Prince William's query of why Sanpower Group had decided to buy HOF, Yuan Yafei responded with "Four Synergies" to introduce the Group's international strategy of "Going Abroad", namely, capital market synergy, supply chain synergy, management synergy, consumer market synergy.

Yuan Yafei stressed that House of Fraser has advanced managerial experience, as well as expertise and innovation in buyers mode and in-house brands, which he hoped to bring to China. Given that China has an enormous consumer market, the combination of Sanpower and House of Fraser will hopefully make the centennial brand even stronger.

The merger into Nanjing Cenbest has instilled new vitality in HOF, with record sales and profit growth in 2014 during its 165 years of development. Prince William extended his congratulations and appreciation to such performance, and expressed his relief that Nanjing Cenbest had managed to guarantee the stable employment of 16,000 British local staff after purchasing HOF.

William appreciates "cross-border e-commerce"

Prince William was also concerned about HOF's plan to enter the Chinese market and the progress. Yuan Yafei revealed that he plans to open 3 stores in China in the near future, with the ""Orient Fraser" department store to be opened in Nanjing first , followed by Chongqing and Xuzhou, and Shanghai the year after. In addition, the synergy on the current supply chain has made substantial progress–it has succeeded in docking with Meici.com, a domestic luxury shopping site, for cross-border e-commerce businesses, which means that customers from China will have the chance to buy over 60,000 categories of unique and authentic British goods from HOF. Prince William spoke highly of this business model, to which Yuan Yafei responded, "the essence of business is to bring value to customers. ”

Lord Livingston, Minister of State for UKTI, accompanied Prince William, and was inquiring about whether Sanpower Group has any further movements in investments in Europe. Yuan Yafei smiled and said: "This is surely in prospect. ”

Lord Livingston said that he welcomes Sanpower Group to continue to invest in Europe, adding that they will be fairly willing to provide good service for Sanpower's investments  in the UK

Go to Yunnan together to see Asian elephants

The meeting lasted 20 minutes in pleasant atmosphere. Learning that Sanpower Group are also very enthusiastic about public welfare, Prince William further invited Yuan Yafei to go to the Wild Elephant Valley in Xishuangbanna of Yunnan to catch a glimpse of wild elephants.

It is reported that, as an advocate to protect endangered wildlife, Prince William has once appreciated the unremitting efforts of the Chinese Government regarding the protection of wild fauna and flora. During this visit, therefore, he has added Yuannan to his visiting list in addition to Beijing and Shanghai. He said that he would very much like to see the Asian elephants in Yunnan, which is also one of the charitable causes to which he has been devoting much attention. The visit to Yunnan will further promote public awareness of wildlife protection.