OUTSPOKEN Hong Kong entrepreneur Jimmy Lai Chee-ying is expected to resign as chairman and director of Giordano Holdings ''in the near future'' to save the garment retailer from Beijing-inflicted troubles, according to sources.
China's Foreign Trade and Economic Commission ordered the closure late yesterday of Giordano's month-old Beijing clothing shop on Wangfujiang Street, saying the shop had not completed its retail licensing documentation.
''We will try to complete the licensing papers within the next couple of weeks,'' a Giordano spokesman said yesterday.
Sources said the Foreign Trade and Economic Commission had ordered its Guangdong branch to tighten scrutiny of the Giordano outlets in the province.
Analysts attributed Beijing's move to a recent article in Mr Lai's Next Magazine, which is believed to have upset the mainland Government. The controversial magazine has 200 staff and a circulation of 180,000.
Mr Lai started Next Magazine, an outspoken weekly, in 1991, two years after the Tiananmen Square bloodbath. His decision was triggered partly by his disapproval of the military crackdown on the democratic movement.
