The Italian Fashion House Dolce & Gabbana is the first Italian fashion company to open a directly-owned store in China since the country opened its market for foreign investors in 2004, reports fibre2fashion.com. The Milan-based house of design duo Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana will open its first directly owned 700 meter store in Hangzouh in spring 2005 and later a 1 000 meter store in Shanghai.

In December 2004 the country has allowed foreign retailers to do business on its territory without local partners and set up stores without approval from the central government. D&G also intends to restyle and reopen its 300 square meter franchise store in Beijing.

For the year ending the company expects a 20 percent sales increase 23 percent in the previous year. Experts predicts D&G’s profits to grow stronger than sales.