Citi Foundation and UP Foundation join to strengthen CL social entrepreneurship Int’l sales bring strong revenues to Uniqlo
TOKYO (AFP) - Japan's Fast Retailing said that sales at its Uniqlo stores abroad had outstripped domestic demand for the first time, as Asia's biggest retailer delivered quarterly earnings that beat market expectations.
Driven by a strong performance in China and the wider Asia region, overseas sales at the cheap-chic Uniqlo chain soared by nearly one third to 258 billion yen ($2.3 billion), just beating the 257 billion yen from domestic sales.
Uniqlo also saw solid revenue growth in the United States, France and Russia.
Total net profit came in at 78.5 billion yen in the three months to November, up 12.7 percent from the same period the preceding year, said Fast Retailing, a rival to Zara, Gap and H&M.
The result beat a median forecast of 63 billion yen from analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.
Meanwhile, operating profit jumped 28.6 percent to 113.9 billion yen as sales gained 16.7 percent.
''Uniqlo Japan generated higherthan-forecast profit from buoyant demand for its staple fall/winter 2017 products, while Uniqlo International revenue also rose significantly,'' the firm said in a statement.
A cheaper yen boosted raw material costs but also inflated the yendenominated value of assets held overseas.
Fast Retailing left its forecasts for its full year to August 2018 unchanged.
It sees net profit of 120 billion yen on sales of 2.05 trillion yen, a 10-percent year-on-year gain as it aims to open more stores outside Japan.
The country’s largest foreign bank and its top university have formed a partnership to equip micro-entrepreneurs in Central Luzon with the necessary skills to succeed in business.
Citi Philippines CEO Aftab Ahmed and University of the Philippines (UP) Chancellor Michael Tan both expressed their commitment to the partnership after the launch of a bridging program for social entrepreneurship and financial inclusion to benefit micro-entrepreneurs. The landmark program aims to develop certificate courses to help build and enhance capacities of practitioners in micro and small enterprise development in Central Luzon.
Ahmed said the partnership was significant as Citi Foundation continued to enhance and expand its efforts to develop a more inclusive financial system throughout the country.
He said, “Citi has always been a champion of the micro-entrepreneur. With Clark Freeport Zone being one of the growth centers in the country, the entrepreneurship courses being developed in the University of the Philippines Diliman Extension Program in Pampanga (UPDEPP) comes at an opportune time. We hope the pilot proves to be successful, so our efforts in educating micro-entrepreneurs can then be replicated in UP colleges across the country.”
Tan and UPDEPP Director Grace Jamon stressed that the UP campus in Clark serves as the ideal strategic base for the program because of ts location and the diverse investments from business locators in the Freeport Zone. The unique advantage can be harnessed through potential collaboration of UPDEPP with large firms to support programs transforming livelihoods and small and medium-sized enterprises in the region to become more competitive and resilient.
Professor Gerardo Agulto, Executive Director of the University of the Philippines Foundation, Inc., said, "We at UP Foundation appreciate this initial engagement and support from Citi Foundation. We hope to develop updated and relevant learning materials on social enterprise management in the region and work with government and non-government organizations implementing livelihood and small enterprise programs. We intend to offer the courses initially under UPDEPP and we look forward to sustaining this process under our non-degree and degree programs. We look forward to a lasting and mutually gratifying relationship."