In recent years JADE's first objective was to have 100 stores by the beginning of the 2008 Olympic Games. Now they want to add another 100 stores in the next couple of years. Had JADE decided to consolidate it is likely that we would see higher profitability levels sooner but with modest sales growth rates. With the new expansion plans sales growth rates will be steeper but probably at the cost of higher profitability rates in the early years. Long-term, though, it would translate in much higher profits.

There is no doubt in my mind that China is the market of strong growth for years to come. Having been in China two years ago and seen first-hand all that is happening (and even visited one of JADE's stores in the Grand Pacific department store in Beijing) I can only see an upside. The only difficulty is to gauge how much time it will take JADE to succesfully achieve its objectives and whether there will be any stumbles along the way.