Ivory products pulled from fourth major Hong Kong retailer
North Point department store becomes fourth big retailer to stop selling elephant products
Another major department store has announced it is scrapping the sale of elephant ivory products amid pressure from animal welfare activists and lawmakers.
The Chinese Goods Centre (CGCL) in North Point is the fourth major retailer to slap a ban on ivory sales within 12 months, after similar measures were implemented by Wing On, Yue Hwa and Chinese Arts & Crafts last year.
The 52-year-old department store said it had told its tenant supplier in late November to stop selling products made of ivory items listed under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.
"We are aware that a business … should not only be about profit, it should also take on its social and environmental and conservation responsibility," CGCL director Wong Chow Kuen-kuen wrote in a letter.
The letter was a reply to pro-Beijing lawmaker Elizabeth Quat, following repeated demands from her for the store to halt ivory product sales.
Quat called the move a "good sign" as it meant most of the city's major retailers were now ivory-free.
But she said: "There must be a sales ban because the system to regulate licensed ivory traders does not work."