Japan'S Retail Giant Yong Wang Faces Losses

Affected by the world financial crisis and Japan's economic recession, the representative retail company of Yong Wang Group, 7, announced that the group net profit in fiscal year 2008 is expected to be between 2 billion 500 million yen and 2 billion 500 million yen (about 93 yen and 1 US dollars).

That means Yong Wang's performance may be the first loss since the 2001 fiscal year.

Due to the long sluggish domestic demand, the sales of clothing and household goods such as JUSCO and other supermarkets in Yong Wang's main store are in a doldrums.

With its US subsidiary selling its clothing brand and closing its domestic stores, it has cost a lot of money, and the special losses of aeon group totalled 25 billion 100 million yen.

According to the data released at the same time, the sales of Yong Wang in fiscal year 08 are expected to be 5 trillion and 200 billion yen, up 0.6% from the same period last year, while gross margin is between 126 billion yen and 131 billion yen, down 16% to 19% over the same period.

Yang Jing: editor in charge