P.M. BRIEFING : Japanese Retailer Eyeing China

Yaohan International Co., the Japanese department store chain that has moved its headquarters to Hong Kong at a time when other firms are moving out, plans to expand into China during the 1990s.

“Hong Kong is the most suitable location for expansion into Chinese markets later on,” Chairman Kazuo Wada said in an interview.

Wada, whose parents set up a small greengrocers store in the Japanese coastal town of Atami in 1930, sees the move into China happening in two stages.

Up to 1997, Yaohan plans to have food, clothes and electrical appliances produced under its own brands by the factories of Taiwanese and Hong Kong entrepreneurs in south China.

“Probably by then (1997), the Chinese people’s average income will grow, and that is the time to open a store in China,” Wada said of the second stage of expansion.