Dinh Dung
Elementary pupils in Tan Phu District join the Aeon Hometown Forest program on Sunday - Photo: Dinh Dung
The giant retailer has just finished building its first shopping center Aeon Mall Tan Phu Celadon in HCMC’s Tan Phu District after 18 months of construction, and plans to bring the mall into operation at the start of January. Following its traditional practice, the company has kicked off a program called Aeon Hometown Forest to plant trees for a green landscape as well as to raise awareness about environment protection in the communities where it does business.
The event took place on Sunday, attracting some 1,000 people consisting of Aeon team members and locals. There were 8,000 trees planted around the newly-finished shopping mall. Notably, hundreds of kids who are elementary pupils in Tan Phu District and shoppers joined the program to cover the mall vicinity with trees.
Nested in the 82-hectare residential Celadon City project, Aeon Mall Tan Phu Celadon has total investment capital of US$100 million with some 80,000 square meters, half of which is for a commercial area with the remaining section available for lease with some 300 stands.
Oyama Nagahisa, chief executive officer of Aeon ASEAN, told participants at the event that the business vision of the company is to grow business in harmony with the environment in the surrounding community, thus planting trees and building a green area for the next generation is a must. He expected the activity will turn the mall into a beloved shopping destination for local people in the future.
The 250-year-old retailer has translated the idea of planting trees into reality since 1991 when it started off with Aeon Malacca Shopping Center in Malaysia, with the good practice performed since then at subsidiaries inside and outside Japan. At present, whenever one of its shopping malls in the Asian region is set up, Aeon plants thousands of trees in the vicinity.
Speaking on the sidelines of the tree-planting program, Nagahisa said the cost for the activity may not be so expensive, but the meaning as well as the value that the program will bring to the community is considerable. According to him, the current generation has to be responsible toward future generations with regards to green values and green actions. A country that is filled with a green environment is a peaceful country.
Nagahisa said that in the last three years, the company’s environment protection fund has planted some 70,000 trees, covering around 34 hectares of forest in Lang Co in the central city of Hue. In the year to date, the Aeon Hometown Forest program has planted some 10 million trees. “We will continue planting trees in our projects in the future.”
Aeon Mall Tan Phu Celadon is the first shopping mall that Aeon has created in Vietnam. However, two other projects are in the pipeline: Aeon Binh Duong Canary in the southern province of Binh Duong is scheduled to open by October 2014 and Aeon Mall Long Bien in Hanoi City should be complete by 2015.
The Japanese retailer is on track with its business expansion in Vietnam, setting a target of developing around 20 shopping malls across the country in the next seven years.
The Saigon Times Daily
Đăng ký: VietNam News