By Roel Landingin
Peninsula NewsWhat is claimed to be
the world’s third-largest shopping centre was created over the weekend in
the Philippines, a country where almost half the people earn less than $2 a day. SM Prime Holdings, the operator, opened an annexe to its SM North EDSA shopping mall in Manila, the country’s first giant shopping complex built in 1985.
The mall, with 425,000 square metres of gross space, beat another of the company’s shopping centres in the capital - the Mall of Asia, which has an area of a mere 407,000 square metres - into fourth place.
SM, which is owned by Henry Sy, 83, whom Forbes magazine listed as
the Philippines’ richest man, said the world’s third, fourth, seventh and eleventh biggest malls by floor area were now to be found in the Philippines, where per capita gross national product is $910. It added that more than 95 percent of the retail space in the malls was occupied.
The opening of the wing amid the worst global recession since the 1930s underscores the SM Group’s
philosophy of focusing on the long view to the point of almost ignoring short-term cycles.
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