[Northwest People and Northwest Affairs] Talking about the history and follow-up situation of the three major Yaohan Department Stores in Northwest New Territories, as well as the reasons for closing

Video version:
https://youtu.be/v6VADM_RlCw

The high-rise ground floor of Phase 1 of Tuen Mun Town Plaza, that is, the part that AEON relinquished, will open Donki within this year.

In fact, Donki is the third Japanese-owned company to open at this location. As for the first firm to enter this location? I believe some people who lived in Tuen Mun in the 1980s and 1990s will remember that Yaohan Department Store opened there.

In fact, Yaohan opened a branch in Tuen Mun Town Plaza in the late 1980s, which was the second branch opened in Hong Kong after Shatin New Town Plaza. After that, Yaohan also opened branches in Yuen Long and Tin Shui Wai in the early 1990s, that is, Yaohan opened three department stores in the northwest New Territories.

However, in November 1997, Yaohan was finally liquidated due to serious debts and arrears of rent in some branches, and all branches suddenly closed overnight.

Let’s talk about the history of the Plaza Store in Tuen Mun City. The residential and shopping malls of Phase 1 of the Plaza in Tuen Mun City were completed in 1987. When the shopping mall part opened, Yaohan Department Store was introduced. In those four-storey shopping malls, each floor had a part of the area, which was designated as part of Yaohan Department Store.

The location near the minibus station on the ground floor is mostly in the department store, mainly selling electrical appliances. The first commercial printing bookstore in Tuen Mun District and Tom Lee Music Store all rented space in the department store and closed in eight hundred years. Initially, these two firms still leased other areas of Tuen Mun Town Plaza to continue their business.

The high-level underground is divided into two parts, the future DONKI part, mainly the household goods department. Since the mid-1990s, Yaohan has launched Cailong printing, which is the later jade printing, and its service department is located on this floor. Here we briefly explain what emerald printing is. In order to stimulate consumption in Yaohan, customers can request a printing for every single purchase of RMB 50 or more.

You can get 1 stamp for every 10 yuan of consumption. At that time, there was a stamp book, and each book was divided into 100 points. Customers can store up the number of designated stamp booklets in exchange for gifts.

The current part of AEON supermarket is the part of Yaohan supermarket and food court. To put it simply, when Yoshinoshima opened there in 1998, parts of the area still used the original Yaohan design, and the food court and supermarket were the same as in the Yaohan period until AEON was first renovated in 2012.

The first floor is mainly the fashion department. At that time, the first floor of the shopping mall was mostly divided into the Yaohan area, which is about the part shown in the floor plan. However, due to the age, the memory of the editor is very vague. If there is any mistake, please correct me in the message box below.

The second floor is in the part shown in the floor plan, and the area occupied by the second floor was obviously less. The second floor is mainly the toy and children's products department, and there is also a playground in the venue.

In the early 1990s, there were 3 amusement parks operating in Tuen Mun Town Plaza, one of which was located in Yaohan and the other was located in the off-site area on the first floor. At the same time, on the second floor of the second phase of the shopping mall, which is the location of the current TASTE supermarket, there was a happy world.

In the 1980s, Yaohan only had three branches. In addition to the Sha Tin New Town Plaza and Tuen Mun Town Plaza mentioned at the beginning of the video, they also opened in Whampoa, the current AEON location in Whampoa Garden, Hung Hom.

In the 1990s, Yaohan opened 6 more branches in Hong Kong in a short period of time. At that time, except for the Lam Tin Huijing Garden store, which was located in the urban area of Kowloon, all other branches were located in new development areas in the New Territories. Two of them were opened in Yuen Long and Tin Shui Wai in the early 1990s.

The Yuen Long branch is located in Yuen Long Tai Hing Building, which is near Tai Wing Wah Restaurant on Tai Hang Street in Yuen Long. It is the closest to Tai Tong Road Station of Light Rail.

The Tin Shui Wai store was located in the newly opened Kingswood Xinbeijiang Shopping Mall. As the editor rarely visits the Yuen Long and Tin Shui Wai branches, I have no memory of the store design and other information.

In 1997, the Asian Financial Crisis broke out. In November of the same year, Yaohan’s Yuen Long branch was suddenly closed by the owner and court officials due to a long-term rent arrears. On the same day, other branches, including those in Tuen Mun and Tin Shui Wai, also closed their doors early and began liquidation procedures in the future.

In the past, Yaohan Department Store had this fate, which can be mainly analyzed by the following two points.

First, there are financial issues. According to the 1996/97 audit report, Yaohan Hong Kong's liabilities have reached 1 billion Hong Kong dollars, and its net assets are only about 35 million Hong Kong dollars. At the same time, Yaohan also borrowed from many banks. As of the end of March 1997, the total outstanding long-term loans reached about HK$20 million, and short-term loans were as high as more than 200 million.

Second, Yaohan's expansion in Hong Kong is too rapid. We mentioned that Yaohan only opened 3 branches in the 1980s, but in the 1990s, it opened 6 more branches in Hong Kong, many of which were opened in newly developed areas such as Tin Shui Wai, Ma On Shan and Tseung Kwan O.

Taking the Northwest New Territories as an example, the number of stores has reached as many as three, but the population of Tuen Mun, Yuen Long and Tin Shui Wai at that time could support the operation of three department stores? According to the 1996 population census, the population of Tuen Mun District is about 460,000, while that of Yuen Long and Tin Shui Wai is about 340,000.

At that time, there were only three larger housing estates in Tin Shui Wai, including Tin Yiu Village and Tin Yau Court, part of Kingswood Villas, and Tin Shui Village and Tin Oi Court, which could not support Tin Shui Wai to operate a department store independently. .

The locations of the original Yaohan in Tuen Mun, Yuen Long and Tin Shui Wai, after Yaohan closed, the fortunes of the three places are very different. Among them, Tuen Mun is the luckiest of the three branches.

The Tuen Mun branch is always located in the central area of Tuen Mun, and the population can also support a large department store. However, after Yaohan closed down, Sino Group saw that a large area of the shopping mall in the first phase of Tuen Mun Town Plaza could not be operated, and at the same time, the flow of people in the shopping mall was greatly reduced.

Therefore, Sino Group, on the one hand, temporarily reopened the original Yaohan location when feasible, so that the tenants who were originally in the venue could continue to operate. On the other hand, Sino Group has also started looking for new tenants. Finally, in 1998, Jizhidao rented out the original Yaohan site in Huangpu Garden, and also rented two floors of the original Yaohan in Tuen Mun Plaza. Eventually, Huangpu and Tunmen opened in the second half of 1998.

The Tuen Mun Town Plaza, the area not rented by Jizhidao, was split into small shops and rented by other businesses. At that time, Yoshinoshima rented both sides of the high-rise underground and part of the first floor. However, after AEON's first renovation in 2012, the high-rise underground part of the original toy department and nearly half of the first floor area were reduced, but the underground floor below the supermarket was rented to compensate for the original reduced area.

In 2020, AEON Tuenmen has been refurbished again. In this renovation, due to the reduction of the area and the number of tenants outside the supermarket, only the ground floor, the high-rise basement of the supermarket, and the first floor are retained.

The other side of the high-rise underground was temporarily retained as a bulk cargo yard after other parts were renovated, and was officially returned to Sino Group in August 2020. After many rounds in the Tuen Mun district, it was finally confirmed in March 2021 that the 7th DONKI in Hong Kong will be opened there.

The branch in the original Tai Hing Building in Yuen Long was rented by an elderly home.

The original site of Kingswood New Beijiang Shopping Mall in Tin Shui Wai was split into several small shops by the owner at that time, which were rented and operated by several small shops. However, the Yaohan logo on the outer wall of the mall was still preserved for a while in the early 2000s.

Last but not least, Tuen Mun Town Plaza, I believe in the future, will be the competition area between AEON and DONKI, the two major Japanese capital markets.