2 November 2004 – Beijing (CHN): European retail giants Carrefour and Metro have announced aggressive expansion plans in China, as the battle among foreign retailers for a hold in the country’s burgeoning retail market heats up.
German retail and wholesale heavyweight Metro plans to add two outlets by the end of the year and an additional ten in 2005, increasing its number of stores in China by 50 per cent by the end of next year.
French-owned Carrefour, China’s largest foreign retailer with 53 hypermarkets already in the country, is to open 15 more stores over the coming year. Its president for China Jean-Luc Chereau described the pace of expansion as "never before seen in the history of Carrefour".
