Mubasher: US coffee chain Starbucks announced a plan to close more than 8,000 company-owned cafes in the US next month in order to implement racial tolerance training.

Starbucks will shut down its branches on the afternoon of 29 May to carry out racial basis training for its employees, according to the company’s statement issued late on Tuesday.

This move aims at preventing discrimination in the US branches through training around 175,000 employees as well as all future recruits, the world’s biggest coffee company noted.

The step came after the arrest of two black men who were waiting to meet someone in a Starbucks in Philadelphia.

“Learning what we did wrong and the steps we need to take to fix it,” said Starbucks' CEO Kevin Johnson.

Closing all these branches on the afternoon may result in losses of $20 million, according to the BBC.

"Closing our stores for racial bias training is just one step in a journey that requires dedication from every level of our company and partnerships in our local communities,” Johnson added.

It is worth noting that the multinational coffee company owns more than 28,000 cafes worldwide.