Tesco has begun talks to buy a stake in a Chinese retail chain which could provide its long-awaited break into one of the world’s biggest consumer markets.
The supermarket wants to buy 50 per cent of Ting Hsin International, which owns 25 hypermarkets in China, in a deal expected to be worth more than £100 million.
Tesco is understood to have been in talks for some time with the four Taiwanese brothers who controls Ting Hsin. People close to the situation said the discussions were at an advanced stage.
The group has been studying the Chinese market for more than two years and a move there fits with the strategy of targeting investment in emerging markets.
In China, Tesco would be following the in the wake of such groups as Wal-Mart and Carrefour. The attraction in China is only its fast rising consumer spending and increasing demand for Western-style goods but the also the access a foothold can give to low-cost labour.
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