SM Prime to expand mall footprint in China

MANILA, Philippines — The SM Group is keen on further expanding its mall presence in China.

Sy-led integrated property developer SM Prime Holdings Inc., which has eight malls in China as of end-2023, is looking at opening new malls in Fujian province in the next few years.

“We still see a lot of potential for our China malls. As a matter of fact, we will be opening a phase of Xiamen, we call it Xiamen 4, by end of next year. We have a project in Haicheng in Fujian province opening also next year. And two years later there’s another project,” SM Supermalls president Steven Tan said.

Tan said the group continues to have confidence in the China market.

“The slowdown that everyone is talking about, I think, it really depends on the area. China is so big and Fujian is not really that greatly affected and most of our anchor projects are in Fujian,” Tan said.

“We still believe in the prospect of China, therefore, we will continue to expand our footprint in China,” he said.

In China, SM Prime has malls located in the cities of Xiamen, Jinjiang, Chengdu, Zibo, Chongqing, Tianjin, Suzhou and Yangzhou.

SM Prime president Jeffrey Lim said the company has two more existing lots that are in the Fujian province.

“Our developments will basically focus on the Fujian province area. So these are existing properties. We have existing malls. We just have to improve the efficiency and productivity of these malls,” Lim said.

“We have to develop them because Fujian province is a market where we are doing very well in China,” he said.

In the Philippines, Lim said a lot of its future mall developments would be in the provinces.

Its focus will be in Northern Luzon, Visayas and the progressive cities in Mindanao.

SM Prime is targeting to have a portfolio of 100 malls in the country by the end of 2027.

As one of the leading integrated property developers in Southeast Asia and the largest mall operator and developer in the Philippines, SM Prime has 85 malls in the country with a total gross floor area of 9.2 million square meters.

It has 24 malls in NCR, 47 in Luzon (excluding NCR) and seven each in Visayas and Mindanao.

For this year, SM Prime plans to open four new malls in the country, adding more than 440,000 square meters of gross floor area in the company’s mall portfolio.