Japan’s Itochu to buy 30% of China's Shangdong Ruyi

In a bid to expand into China's clothing sector, Japanese trading house Itochu Corp announced today, it will acquire 30-per cent stake in China's  Shandong Ruyi Group for around 15 billion yen ($200 million, Reuters reported.

With this deal Itochu will become the second-largest shareholder in the Chinese apparel company.

Itochu Corporation is engaging in domestic trading, import / export, and overseas trading of various products such as textile, energy, metals, etc, having approximately 130 bases in 68 countries.

Shandong Ruyi Group is a Chinese joint-venture enterprise, and is among the top 10 enterprises in the textile industry. It has total assets of RMB 5.5 billion yuan and nearly 20 thousand employees

Itochu, which already runs textile operations in Japan, Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland and owns factories throughout Asia, said it plans to expand trading of wool and other materials with Shandong Ruyi and double Shandong Ruyi sales compared with its 2011 target to 400 billion yen.

Itochu also gets an indirect stake of about 12 per cent in Japan's Renown Inc, in which Shandong Ruyi has a 41 per cent stake.