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Meitetsu Mart sold to Carmen’s Safeway
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Posted on Jan 27 2005
Carmen’s Safeway Enterprises, Inc., the company behind the Carmen’s Baby News store on Beach Road, Chalan Kanoa, will soon take over the operations of the Meitetsu Shopping Center on Saipan.
Carmen’s Safeway’s takeover of the supermarket will become effective on Feb. 1.
Carmen’s Safeway, a local corporation, acquired the supermarket from a Japanese-owned corporation, Meitetsu Corp., which has operated Meitetsu for more than a decade. Meitetsu is adjacent to Carmen’s Baby News on Beach Road.
The late Sen. Olympio T. Borja established Carmen’s Safeway in 1986. The senator named the corporation after his wife Carmen. Carmen’s Safeway used to engage in retail of assorted merchandise, until Carmen’s Baby News was born in 1994 to exclusively retail baby and children’s products.
The pullout of Meitetsu Corp. from the supermarket business is just one of similar pullouts by Japanese investors from diverse businesses in the Commonwealth.
This development caught the attention of the Saipan Chamber of Commerce, which urged the CNMI government to look into why some investors are pulling out from the islands.
No comment has been obtained from Commerce Secretary Andrew Salas about the situation as of press time.
Sablan had said, though, that the Chamber is upbeat with the potential for economic recovery through other avenues, noting the recent approval of the CNMI’s approved destination status application with the Chinese government.
Besides the sale of Meitetsu, there are also rumors about the possible sale of a discotheque business owned by a Japanese corporation.
Sablan also noted the pullout of Japanese companies behind other major investments such as Laolao Bay Golf Resort and the Hafa Adai Hotel.
