India's biggest private company Reliance Industries, said on August 18 it aims to launch its first store next month in the southern city of Hyderabad, part of a plan to build an Indian version of Wal-Mart, the world's largest retail chain.
Reliance, whose main business is petrochemicals, has said it plans to invest nearly six billion dollars in setting up the store subsidiary covering nearly 1,500 cities and towns in India.
"We will be opening our first store in Hyderabad in September and this will be a very large store with food, vegetables and staples," Reliance Retail president Raghu Pillai told reporters in the Indian capital.
Pillai said the company, which Reliance intends to list on the stock market, "plans to be across the country as soon as we can" and would quickly reach 100 stores but gave no specific timeframe.
He said Reliance Retail would offer competitive prices by removing "extra costs from the supply chain." As part of its drive to cut costs, it is considering partnering consumer durable companies to procure goods directly and sourcing items from low-cost manufacturers like China.
Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries, has said he wants to make the retail chain "a Wall-Mart in India" with an annual sales target of 25 billion dollars by 2011.