The Shinsegae Co. Ltd. of the Republic of Korea (ROK) will invest US $60 million to set up an E-Mart Supercenter chain store in Tianjin, a port city in northern China.
It marked the first step toward a long-term strategic partnership between the Chinese Taida Group and the ROK's largest commercial distribution enterprise.
Kyung-Sang Lee, vice-president of Shinsegae, said his firm had great confidence in the Chinese market and hoped E-Mart could expand its chain store operation to the whole country with a base in Tianjin.
Shinsegae reported a combined sales volume of 43.3 billion yuan(US$5.2 billion) of its department stores and supermarkets. E-Mart has a 33 percent market share in the ROK, far ahead of Carrefour and Wal-Mart, two of the world's largest retail giants.
Taida, the city's top real estate company, is to cooperate with Shinsegae to establish six large supermarkets in Tianjin by 2006.
(Xinhua News Agency July 2, 2003)
