European Retail Academy informed us that the bi-annual APRCE Congress and Exhibition was hosted in 2015 by the Phillippines. The opening ceremony in Manila was honored by a speech of H.E. Benigno S. Aquino III, President of the Republic and by greetings of the FAPRA President Mehmet Nane/Turkey and the President of the Philippine Retail Association Lorenzo C. Formoso. On the occasion of the exhibition, Andrew Yeo, the founder of the “Retail Asia” magazine and Professor Bernd Hallier, President of the European Retail Academy, promoted together their books “True Grit” and “From Crisis to Competence” and “Food Waste Management”.
European Retail Academy also let us know that the “Retail Asia” magazine analyzed with its partners the statistics of the Top 500 retailers in 14 key markets. The Gold Awards for each country were given to: Australia/Westfarmers, China/China Resource Enterprise, Hong Kong/AS Watson, India/Future Value Retail, Indonesia/Indomarco Prismatama, Japan/AEON, Malaysia/GCH Retail, New Zealand/Foodstuffs, Philippines/ SM Retail, Singapore/NTUC Fair Price, South Korea/Lotte, Taiwan/President Chain Store Corp., Thailand/CP-All and Vietnam/Saigon COOP. 26 of the top-players had accepted further questionnaires to analyze their business strategies, their IT or HR-Resources or their Corporate Social Responsibilty . An international Jury (including of course Prof. Dr. Bernd Hallier) voted for the Best-of-the Best: Gold – The Good Guys/Australia, Silver- China Resources Enterprise/China and Bronze – Mercury Drug Corp./Philippines. The Awards Ceremony and Gala Dinner was held at the Solaire Resort & Casino in Manila/Philippines.