Kinokuniya Closing Oldest Store in Asia Outside Japan

Books Kinokuniya is closing its store at Liang Court in Singapore on April 21. Opened in 1983, the store was Kinokuniya's first location in Asia outside Japan, the Straits Times reported. Kinokuniya has three other stores in Singapore, including the main store in the Takashimaya Shopping Center, and some 140 stores around the world. (Its first store outside Japan opened in San Francisco in 1969.)

In an announcement about the closing, Kinokuniya said, "We seek to consolidate and channel our limited resources for better deployment among our other business units."

The 13,000-square-foot store offers 150,000 titles in English, Japanese and Chinese. The paper noted that "Kinokuniya's first customers in Singapore were Japanese expatriates, but the bookstore soon included English titles in its line-up of bestsellers, paving the way for its success here."

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