THE Swire Group has re-opened an office in Shanghai more than 120 years after the founder of the conglomerate, John Samuel Swire, set up his first office in the city to handle textile goods exported to China.
The new Shanghai office will serve as a liaison point between Swire's companies in the region and will also provide a consultation and research service for the group's future expansion plans in China.
''It is almost 127 years to the day since John Samuel Swire arrived in Shanghai to open his first Asian office,'' Hong Kong Swire group chairman, John Sutch said in a speech to mark the opening of the office.
''Like so many British merchants before him, he was attracted to Shanghai by the exciting commercial opportunities which China then, as now, offered foreign investors.'' The Swire Group is headquartered in London, but the Far East and Pacific regions have been its traditional sphere of operations.
Swire's first foray into the mainland began with a textile export business in the 1860s.
The company later tapped into China's vast supply of tea and silk which were then sought after commodities in England.
Shipping, the Taikoo Sugar refinery in Hong Kong, a paint factory in Shanghai to maintain its growing fleet of ships and a dockyard at Taikoo were all added to the group's operations in the region before the outbreak of World War II.