OREANDA-NEWS.  Sumitomo Corporation (Head Office: Chuo-ku, Tokyo; President: Kuniharu Nakamura) will be partnering with Shanghai Chamberlee Property Management Co., Ltd. (Head Office: Shanghai, China; President: Li Xuemei; hereinafter, “Chamberlee”), a Chinese commercial property management company, to set up Shanghai Chamberlee Tomosho Property Management Co., Ltd. (Head Office: Shanghai, China; President: Sun Hao; hereinafter, “Chamberlee Tomosho”) as a joint venture in November 2015, marking its entry into China’s commercial property development consulting and its management market.

Many new shopping centers have been opened in China in recent years, with the number expected to climb up from around 3,500 in 2014 to around 10,000 locations in 2020.  Quite a few of these shopping centers lack adequate planning and marketing, however, and the superiority and inferiority among  facilities has been becoming  clear. Given the need for differentiating and efficiently operating appealing facilities, growing attention is being focused on Japan’s know-how in commercial facility development/operation, considered among the most advanced and highest in quality in Asia.

Sumitomo Corporation, together with its wholly-owned subsidiary Sumisho Urban Kaihatsu Co., Ltd. (Head Office: Chuo-ku, Tokyo; President: Masaaki Kokubo; hereinafter, “Sumisho Urban Kaihatsu”), has cultivated know-how in developing and operating locally-oriented commercial facilities emphasizing comfort through such projects as Terrace Mall Shonan, one of the largest shopping centers in the Shonan area, and MOMO Terrace, a renewal project involving the conversion of a department store into a shopping center. Sumitomo Corporation is also strong in developing and operating various types of commercial facilities, as evidenced by its work with a luxury mall in Ginza, one of the world’s prime commercial locations, as part of the Ginza 6-chome Redevelopment Project currently underway.

Boasting an extensive network throughout China, Chamberlee is involved in operating and managing the Suzhou Culture and Arts Center and many other commercial facilities, particularly in the economically booming Huadong area, and has thereby accumulated a wealth of experience and know-how in such fields as commercial facility renewal, asset management, and tenant leasing.

Chamberlee Tomosho fuses the respective strengths of Sumitomo Corporation and Chamberlee in order to meet the growing need for high-quality development/operation of commercial facilities in China. Sumisho Urban Kaihatsu will be subcontracted to undertake some of Chamberlee Tomosho’s operations, and it will help differentiate commercial facilities and enhance their value by actively soliciting tenants (including Japanese brands) and providing management/operation know-how tailored to local conditions. Chamberlee Tomosho will start out with a project in Shenyang for Shanghai Industrial Urban Development Group Limited  and the Suzhou Sports Center project and pursue other projects in Shanghai, Suzhou, Nanjing, Wuhan, Beijing, and Shenyang, steadily moving into more cities as it expands its business.

Sumitomo Corporation is already engaged in a condominium project in China, and it will leverage the know-how it has cultivated in Japan to actively pursue future projects, with an eye on developing commercial facilities as well as residential and commercial complexes.