OREANDA-NEWS. UNIQLO announces plans to on November 29 open a new store in Kesennuma, a city in northeastern Japan hard hit by the March 2011 earthquake. The new UNIQLO Kesennuma Store is a response to calls from locals for a bigger store with a wider range of apparel, and replaces a temporary outlet opened as part of the UNIQLO Recovery Assistance Project to help rebuild communities devastated by the March 2011 earthquake.

At around 530 square meters, the new store is five times the size of the temporary outlet it replaces, and offers some 400 items - a 10-fold increase. The new UNIQLO Kesennuma Store is located in the Higashi Shinjo area of the city (1-7-3 Higashi Shinjo, Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture). The temporary outlet, which has operated in a prefabricated building in the Akaiwa Suginosawa neighborhood of Kesennuma since March 9, 2012, will close on November 17, 2013.

Much progress has been made in the recovery from the earthquake, but residents of the hardest hit areas continue to struggle and UNIQLO is committed to providing support. UNIQLO is working with a number of nongovernmental organizations to encourage self-sufficiency, improve the standard of living, create jobs, and rebuild devastated communities. Through this, UNIQLO opened the UNIQLO Kesennuma Store in Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture and the UNIQLO Sea Plaza Kamaishi Store in Kamaishi, Iwate Prefecture. The UNIQLO Recovery Assistance Project was launched on March 1, 2012, and runs until February 28, 2015.