Weekly News Wrap: Japan’s vaccination efforts boost retail sector; Dingdong raises $95.69m in US IPO

And France probes Uniqlo over concealing Xinjiang involvement.

From CNBC:

Japan’s vaccination efforts are gaining some momentum now after a slow start, and that’s good news for retailers, said EY’s Nobuko Kobayashi.

“The vaccination, finally, is picking up steam in Japan. The government says that all who wants to be vaccinated can be by October, November,” Kobayashi, Asia-Pacific strategy execution leader at EY, told CNBC.

Looking ahead, the short-term milestone will be if Japan’s vaccination rollout reaches a level whereby “everyone feels comfortable to go out again,” she said. Kobayashi said the consumption outlook on balance is positive, even taking into consideration concerns about Covid variants like delta.

Following a sluggish rollout earlier in the year, vaccination rates in Japan have risen substantially in recent weeks.

Read more here.

From Reuters:

Chinese grocery app, Dingdong, backed by SoftBank Vision Fund 2, raised about $95.69m in its US initial public offering (IPO) after slashing the size of the IPO to almost a fourth of its earlier target.

Dingdong sold more than 4 million American depositary shares (ADSs) priced at $23.5 apiece, the lower end of its indicative price range. The company had earlier planned to raise up to $357m in its IPO by selling 14 million ADSs priced between $23.5 and $25.5.

Established in 2017 and also backed by Tiger Global Management and Sequoia Capital, Dingdong operates mainly in China's first-tier cities such as Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, and Hangzhou.

Its rival online grocery company, Missfresh, which is backed by Tencent, slumped in its Nasdaq debut last week.

Read more here.

From Reuters:

French prosecutors have opened an investigation into four fashion retailers, which includes Uniqlo, suspected of concealing "crimes against humanity" in China's Xinjiang region, a judicial source said.

The procedure is linked to accusations against China over its treatment of minority Muslim Uyghurs in the region, including the use of forced labour, the source said. China denies all accusations of abuse in the region.

The source told Reuters Uniqlo France, a unit of Japan's Fast Retailing, Zara owner Inditex, France's SMCP and Skechers were the subject of the investigation, confirming a report by French media website Mediapart.

Fast Retailing said in a statement from Tokyo that it had not been contacted by French authorities and that none of its production partners are located in Xinjiang.

Read more here.