Fashion retailer French Connection today announced that it has signed an exclusive three year retail licence agreement with D'Urban Inc of Japan to distribute French Connection and FCUK products in Japan.D'Urban will initially open two flagship stores in Tokyo in 2001 followed by further standalone stores and concessions throughout the country.Stephen Marks, chief executive said of the deal: "Securing a Japanese distributor creates a very exciting opportunity to significantly develop our Asian business with a substantial and experienced partner and builds on our existing activities in that region, namely Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and Australia."The company continues its expansion throughout the USA, with the recent opening of stores in Las Vegas and Phoenix and a further new store in Chicago that will open later this month. Its flagship store in San Francisco remains on track to open in Spring 2001.The company has also opened its 14,000 sq ft flagship store in Oxford Street, London, the largest in its portfolio, on October 27."The USA continues to be a significant market for us and we are looking forward to giving our customers something different with the forthcoming San Francisco store. We are very pleased with the Oxford Street store, which has been trading well and its size and new store format enables us to present our full product range to the customer," Mr Marks concluded.