ITOCHU Corporation (headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo; Masahiro Okafuji, President & CEO; hereinafter “ITOCHU”) announced today that, jointly with ITOCHU Textile Prominent (ASIA) Ltd. (headquartered in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region; Hideo Nakanishi, CEO), its Hong Kong subsidiary, ITOCHU has formed a capital and business alliance with Fortune Link (Global) Holdings Ltd. (headquartered in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region; Eric Leung, CEO; hereinafter “Fortune Link”), an online shopping company in Hong Kong.

Fortune Link has been managing an online shopping site, WWW.XPDD.COM, as its online shopping mall platform business since April 2010, focusing on high-quality brand products. Following the establishment of an alliance with China Post, it has been able to quickly distribute a range of products, such as fashion items and cosmetics, thereby rapidly boosting its recognition in the Chinese market.

China’s online shopping market grew to 276 billion yuan (approximately 4 trillion yen) in fiscal 2009, with 130 million users. The market is likely to exceed 490 billion yuan (approximately 7.5 billion yen) in fiscal 2010, and should continue to grow rapidly in the future.

Through the capital and business alliance as described above, ITOCHU will manage the comprehensive e-commerce business of brand products in China. It will expand its lineup of brand products of Fortune Link’s online shopping site, and aims to bolster the corporate value of Fortune Link. As a first initiative, ITOCHU will begin selling LeSportsac, the U.S. casual brand that it has been marketing, on the Fortune Link online shopping site from the end of this month, and expects to launch more brand products that will enjoy strong demand in the future. ITOCHU will also seek to achieve synergies with the development of brand online shopping sites, one of its key businesses in the Japanese market.

ITOCHU positions household consumption as a priority field, and particularly in the fast-growing Chinese consumer market, it has been taking steps to strengthen its sales foundations, for instance with an investment in a major television shopping operator in Shanghai in August 2010. By positioning Fortune Link as one of its new platforms, ITOCHU is committed to expanding the household consumption business in China.

Profile of Fortune Link

Corporate name	Fortune Link (Global) Holdings Ltd.
Representative	Eric Leung
Address	Unit One 14/F., Charm Centre, 700 Castle Peak Road, Kowloon, Hong Kong
Established	May 13, 2005
URL	http://www.xpdd.com/