Youngor in 1b yuan land deal

Youngor, the country's biggest shirts maker, has bought a large tract of land at its home base in Ningbo to develop residential projects, in the latest move by the garment maker to expand its property business at a time of dwindling export demand and narrowing manufacturing profit margins.

The Shanghai-listed garment maker said in a stock exchange filing that it bought the 59,000 sq m land slot for 1 billion yuan, its first major land deal this year.

The company has been trying to diversify into real estate development and equity investment for the past several years - and the strategy has yielded higher returns than manufacturing.