SM opens 5th mall in China

4:57 pm | Thursday, December 13th, 2012

Artist’s perspective of SM City Chongqing FROM SMCITY.CN

MANILA, Philippines—Tycoon Henry Sy has boosted his portfolio of shopping malls in mainland China with the opening of SM City Chongqing in southwest China on Friday, the group’s fifth in Asia’s largest economy.

SM Prime Holdings Inc. disclosed on Thursday that SM City Chongqing, located in the Yubei district, has a gross floor area (GFA) of 149,080 square meters, 85 percent of which has already been awarded to various tenants. The new mall is a one-building structure with five levels.

The group’s four earlier shopping malls in China were located in Xiamen, SM City Jinjiang, SM City Chengdu and SM City Suzhou.

“We are very pleased to open our fifth mall in China, SM City Chongqing, as we provide mall-goers with a one-stop shopping, dining and leisure destination. We believe Chongqing is a significant market given the city’s huge population and its attractive growth prospects. As we learn more about the market and gain acceptance in China, we intend to penetrate other cities that show promising economic progress. After Chongqing, the pipeline includes the launching of Zibo and Tianjin in 2014,” SM Prime president Hans Sy said in a press statement.

SM Prime said that with its strategic location and transport accessibility, the new mall will serve a population of about 30 million residents in the city of Chongqing and offer a mix of local and international stores. The major tenants are Vanguard Supermarket, SM Department Store and Wanda Cinema. Junior tenants include Vero Moda, Only, Jack & Jones, Starbucks, Watsons and Kidswant.

The company described the exterior design of SM City Chongqing as featuring fish scale panels accentuated by lightings while its interior “has slanted glass panels that define lobbies that help create grand entrance ambiance.”

Chongqing has several economic and technological development zones and is a major railway hub. The city also boasts of cultural heritage and natural attractions, and is the starting point for the Yangtze River cruise, which explores the impressive scenery of China’s famous Three Gorges.

SM City Chongqing is the sixth SM mall to be opened by SM Prime this year after SM City Olongapo in Zambales, SM City Consolacion in Cebu, SM City San Fernando in Pampanga, SM City General Santos in South Cotabato and SM Lanang Premier in Davao. This completes its programmed expansions for 2012.

SM Prime now has a total of 51 SM malls in the Philippines and in China, with a combined gross floor area of 6.3 million sqm.

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Tags: Business , China , mall , Retail , SM City Chongqing

http://www-blogjosemig200905com.blogspot.com/ Jose Miguel Garcia

In a letter to his mother, Jose Rizal wrote: “I had a lawsuit with the Chinese and I vowed not to buy any more from them, so that sometimes I find myself very hard up. Now we have almost neither dishes nor tumblers.”

Edgar Wickberg, who wrote “The Chinese in Philippine Life 1850-1898″ said that in 1895, while in exile in Dapitan in Mindanao, in the southern Philippines, Jose Rizal was filled with righteous indignation at the “exploitation” of the natives by the Chinese traders, and appealed to the local residents to boycott the Chinese shops. He also opened a small sari-sari store to compete against the Chinese.

Nick Joaquin, the late Philippine cultural icon, even praised Rizal’s actions: “And because Chinese financiers had a stranglehold on native agriculture, Rizal set up the Cooperative Association of Dapitan Farmers, a pioneer in economic nationalism.

The Father of the Philippine Army, and hero of our country, Gen Artemio Ricarte included in the vision for our nation which he distributed in the country, the ban of the chinese from banking and business.

This is the Determinant of National Actions of our elders we filipinos have inherited.

http://www-blogjosemig200905com.blogspot.com/ Jose Miguel Garcia

The next generations of our elders carried the DNA of Jose Rizal and Gen Artemio Ricarte.

Around November of 1924, we developed check points set up for identifying and assessing foreigners entering our country as part of our defense system of checking further foreign infiltration. However, the United States government, with their military might to back up their policies, dismantled them. An editorial appeared on June 5, 1926 in The Tribune. It made a comment regarding: the chinese making a plaything of our exclusion laws; their out maneouvering us from the start of our border checking operations, making a fool out of us.

At the same time we filipinos took physical actions in parts of Luzon and Manila to dismantle chinese establishments. Unfortunately, the U.S. established auxilliary corps of their armed forces- the Philippine Constabulary, blocked our actions.

We tried strategies to gain control as much area of our nation as we could against the foreigners. The start of our series of manoeuvres thru legal operations with the Retail Trade Nationalization Law in 1954 however, was out-manoeuvred by the Chinese. After we implemented this law, some 8700 of the 10,000 chinese who rushed to get hold of certificate of filipino citizenship papers after 1946, did so after 1954. Except on paper, the number of chinese able to control retail trade was still the same.

Today, Henry Sy is one of those chinese. Today, we filipinos have lost possession of our lands and control of our development.

Today, we recover our DNA we inherited from our founding fathers, and recover possession and control of our nation.

SM opens 5th mall in China

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