Yamada Denki, Japan's leading electronics retailer, plans to invest USD100 million to open a flagship store in Shenyang, provincial capital of Liaoning Province.

According to local media, Shenyang's official trade mission recently visited Japan to promote the expansion of Yamada Denki in its market, but the exact timing for the opening of this Shenyang store was not revealed.

In May 2008, Japanese media reported that Yamada Denki plans to open a store in Shanghai in two years to become the first Japanese electronics retailer to enter the Chinese market. Covering an area about 5,000 square meters to 10,000 square meters, its Shanghai store, which targets middle and high-end customers, will mainly focus on the sales of Japanese-made flat-panel TV sets.

Liu Buchen, a Chinese appliance expert, says that the entry of Yamada Denki into the Chinese market will not greatly affect local appliances retailers such as Gome and Suning. Liu added that the Japanese retailer should work out a suitable model for the development of their stores in China, so as to avoid ending up like the United States-based Best Buy, which entered the Chinese market in 2003 but opened only two stores in Shanghai so far.