David Cameron visits Tesco in Beijing
Tesco prepares opening of 100th Chinese store
UK Prime Minister David Cameron visited Tesco’s Happy Valley store in the Chinese capital on Tuesday as the rapidly-expanding international retailer prepared for the opening of its 100th Chinese store in Jinan, Shandong Province.
On a visit to enhance links between Britain and China, whose trading partnership goes back centuries, the Prime Minister took the opportunity to visit Tesco as his first port of call on the week-long trip to Asia.
Located in a popular mall in the Chaoyang District of Beijing, the store employs 187 people and serves around 40,000 customers each week. Tesco’s Chinese business had sales of £498 million in the first half of the 2010/11 financial year, and same-store sales rose by 6% during the period.
Lucy Neville-Rolfe, Tesco’s Executive Director for Corporate and Legal Affairs, welcomed the Prime Minister to the Happy Valley store, along with Tesco China CEO, Ken Towle.
“We’re absolutely thrilled to welcome the Prime Minister to Tesco in China,” Ms Neville-Rolfe said.
“Tesco has a very dynamic and exciting business in China and there’s plenty more to come. In fact, we are currently preparing to open our one hundredth Chinese store – a fantastic achievement in just six years of trading. This demonstrates our commitment to developing a business of genuine scale in the largest retail market in the world.”
Employing around 330 people, the Jinan store will be the second in the city, which is the capital of Shandong Province in eastern China. The store will be Tesco’s 88th hypermarket in China, which along with 12 Express stores, currently serve around 4m customers every week.
