President Chain Store Corp (
Seven-Eleven Japan Co will open one store on April 15 and another four outlets by the end of May, it said in a statement on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The Japanese company will take a 65 percent stake in the venture, and two Chinese partners will hold the remaining 35 percent.
Taipei-based President Chain, which last year said it would take a 14 percent stake in the venture under a preliminary agreement, has been wrangling with Seven-Eleven Japan for a bigger share. It applied in June, 2001 to open stores in Shanghai and Beijing, and may be hurt by not joining the venture.
"It's certainly a disappointment," said Simon Lu, a money manager at Hua Nan Investment Trust Corp (永昌投信) which oversees the equivalent of US$2.7 billion of mutual funds in Taipei. Lu doesn't hold President Chain shares. "Convenience stores and supermarkets belong to different markets. China is about who gets in first. The company's long-term development may be affected."
Seven-Eleven Japan said in a statement in January on its Web site that it set up a Beijing venture that would open and run the 7-Eleven Inc franchise in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei province. Beijing ShouLian Commercial Group (北京首聯) would take a 25 percent stake and China National Sugar & Alcohol Group (中國糖業飲料集團) 10 percent. The statement didn't mention President Chain.
"It doesn't matter even if we aren't a founding shareholder," President Chain Chief Financial Officer Fred Chen (
Chen said President Chain is pressing ahead with supermarket and drugstore ventures in China. In February, the company said it would set up a drugstore venture in Shenzhen in southern China.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last