CJ Launches Eatery Franchise in China

South Korea’s biggest foodstuff maker, CJ Corp., is set to leap into the Chinese franchise restaurant market.

The foodstuff maker said Wednesday that it would open the first shop of its bakery franchise chain, Tous Les Jours, in Beijing Thursday.

CJ plans to establish three direct Tous Les Jours outlets by year’s end and aggressively expand its franchise business across mainland China starting next year.

''The Chinese fresh-baked bread market has great growth potential. It grew 15 percent last year from a year earlier,'' said Lee Seung-jae, a public relations manager of CJ Corp.

CJ Corp. will also open its noodle franchise restaurant, Czen, this November in the same district where the first Tous Les Jours outlet will be located.

The CJ Group seeks to advance into the Chinese market under its own CJ brand to promote its brand awareness in China.

The group said it is shifting its Chinese business strategy from manufacturing-focused investment to service-oriented investment to capitalize on the fast growing buying power of the Chinese.

Humax Inks $47 Mil. Deal With German Broadcaster

Humax has clinched a contract with Premiere Fernsehen of Germany to supply $47 million, or 38.5 million euros, worth of personal video recorder (PVR) mounted digital set-top boxes.

South Korea's leading digital set-top box maker said Tuesday that it will begin shipping the cable-and-satellite-receiver-in-one set-top boxes to Germany's largest digital TV network operator and biggest national pay-TV broadcaster, Premiere, next month.

The 160-gigabyte hard disc drive embedded iPDR-9800 can record up to 80 hours of continuous broadcasting video footage. The dual tuners installed in the iPDR-9800 enables a user to record the on-air TV program that he is watching and a separate channel simultaneously, Humax said.

The latest supply deal follows the first contract reached with the German broadcaster, which supplied it with $30 million worth of digital set-top boxes in November 2004.