Yulon plans more development projects

Yulon Motor Co (裕隆汽車), the Taiwanese partner of Japan's Nissan Motor Co, said yesterday that it plans to pour a huge amount of funds into developing a housing and commercial complex as part of efforts to expand its business into the service sector.

"Yulon has transformed from simply an auto manufacturer into a holding company and is seeking to extend its reach into the service sector," the firm's president Chen Kuo-rong (陳國榮) said yesterday on the sidelines of the opening ceremony for Yulon's Auto Mall.

Chen said the company invested NT$7 billion (US$222.7 million) to turn the 11,000-ping plot of land into the Auto Mall. Construction of the project started two years ago. The automaker expects to enjoy rental returns of around NT$200 million a year from operating the mall, he added.

The mall contains flagship showrooms for the six auto brands that Yulon manufactures or distributes -- Nissan, Infiniti, Renault, Cadillac, Buick and Opel -- as well as a maintenance area, automotive peripherals stores and restaurants, to provide consumers with a one-stop shopping service.

The shopping cluster, led by the mall and French hypermarket Carrefour SA, which has rented land from Yulon, has also boosted the value of the automaker's land assets by about 10 percent, Chen said.

The firm is planning to turn another idle factory with land area of over 30,000 ping, into a housing and commercial complex opposite the newly-completed mall in Sindian.