The supermarket recorded a 30 per cent growth rate outside of the UK last year compared with seven per cent at home. Sir Terry said moving into China is part of the company’s strategy of taking on the likes of Wal-Mart and Carrefour, the world’s two biggest retailers who already have a presence in the country.
Sir Terry, speaking at an Efficient Consumer Response Conference in Brussels, said: “We’re number three in the world, but we want to be number one. It makes sense for us to concentrate on growing our international business given that’s where most of our growth is.”
The supermarket has been expanding outside the UK since 1993 and is now the hypermarket leader in Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, while three of the group’s biggest stores are in Asia: two in South Korea and the third in Phuket, Thailand.
“Asia is the key growth area in the world and Tesco wants to increase its presence there, said Sir Terry. “To be a significant world player you have to be present in places like China.” He added that it would be easier to enter China now that its restrictions on foreign investment have been eased in connection with the country’s entry into the World Trade Organisation in 2001.
No comments yet