Owner denies that Chinese leaders' supermarket is closed

The chairwoman of the Chengdu Hongqi supermarket chain denied on Tuesday that her store in the Chinese Communist Party’s secret leadership compound had been closed down.

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The main gate of China's secretive Zhongnanhai leadership compound. Photo: AP

Published: 4:47pm, 26 Mar 2013Updated: 5:09am, 27 Mar 2013

The chairwoman of the Chengdu Hongqi supermarket chain denied on Tuesday that her store in the Chinese Communist Party’s secret leadership compound had been closed down.

“There are always people with all kinds of motives making up bizarre rumours,” Hongqi chairwoman Cao Shiru wrote in a weibo post on Tuesday morning. "Spreading [these] rumours is like selling shoddy goods."

There are always people with all kinds of motives making up bizarre rumours

Her Chengdu-based chain runs the only store known to operate in the mysterious central government compound. The claims are difficult to verify since the former imperial residence at the heart of Beijing is not open to the public.

The store closed some time before March 14, the day Xi Jinping assumed the presidency, according to the report that first circulated on blogs last week. The story was picked up briefly by the state-run news agency Xinhua on Tuesday, but has since been deleted.

Chengdu Hongqi is listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. The retailer's shares rose two per cent on Tuesday.

The 300-square metre store opened in December 2003, two years after Cao pitched the idea to “relevant organs”, according to the report still accessible on other websites.