BEIJING - US-based
retail giant Wal-Mart will open another 13 stores
in China next year, increasing the nationwide
total to 62, the Economic Daily reported recently.
These 13 stores, located mostly at
shopping plazas and including one or two Sam's
Club wholesale stores, will be scattered
throughout the current operating regions of
Wal-Mart in China, said President and CEO of
Wal-Mart Lee Scott while in Beijing ,
the
last stop of his annual trip to China, which
covered some of the major cities of the country
including Shanghai; Wuhan, capital
of central China's Hubei province, and
Changsha, capital of central China's Hunan province.
Besides developing the great potential of
metropolitan cities like Beijing and Shanghai,
Wal-Mart has also been paying much attention to
China's medium-and small-sized cities and is
planning to move westward with a view to the
country's surging economic growth, said Scott.
Wal-Mart pledged to practice universal
service standards and increase the use of recently
introduced environmentally-friendly packaging
material, the Economic Daily reported. The new,
biodegradable corn plastic packages, which were
introduced into all packaging in Wal-Mart stores
in the US recently, will also be put into use in
China, according to a timetable currently being
worked on, Scott said.
The Chinese market
is ranked #1 among Wal-Mart's overseas
outsourcing. Wal-Mart has 27,000 employees in
China and has opened 49 stores in 23 cities so
far, including Beijing, Shanghai, southwest
China's Chongqing Municipality,
Shenzhen city in South China's Guangdong province, and
Dalian in northeastern Liaoning province.
