Metro Group has revealed plans to rapidly increaseits expansion into central and eastern Asia, as well as the Middle East, includingproposals to open a series of new stores in Egypt, Kazakhstan and Japan.
Metro Cash & Carry announced the opening earlier thisweek of its first wholesale store in Kazakhstan’s capital Astana as well asplans for up to 20 outlets in Egypt.
In a statement, the retailer said that, provided it couldsecure land and the necessarylicenses, it saw the potential for 10 to 15 wholesale stores in Kazakhstan withan average investment of around €15m to €20m per outlet.
The opening of the first store in Egypt, which will bebranded ‘Makro’ due to copyright issues, is planned for early summer 2010 andMetro said it planned to open 10 stores in the country in the medium term andup to 20 in the long term.
“With the dynamic growth of the middle class and theimpressive development of the hotel, restaurant and service sector, Kazakhstanas well as Egypt offer enormous potential for our self-service wholesalebusiness,” said Metro Cash & Carry chief executive Frans Muller.
“We are confident that our business model not only has asustainable growth perspective in both markets, but that we will alsocontribute significantly to the positive economic development of bothcountries,” he added.
Metro is also reportedly planning to open up to 20 newoutlets in the Tokyo metropolitan area in Japan, citing huge growth potentialin the country, reports Foodbizdaily.
The wholesaler recently opened its sixth store in Japan inthe Tokyo/Yokohama conurbation and said that the outlet’s architecture wasproof of its ability to adapt to challenging conditions in heavily populatedareas.
Further evidence of the breadth of Metro’s expansion planswas provided earlier this month with the opening of its 50th store in Russia.The new store, the first for Metro in the Kirov region, is in keeping with thegroup’s stated plan to move into eastern Russia and Siberia.
In its statement, the wholesale group added that up to 90per cent of the products stocked in all new stores would be sourced from localproducers and suppliers.
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