Business - India;Bharti Wal-Mart to open stores by June 2009

Bharti
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Wal-Mart, grocery and retail chain operator, will be going ahead with its plans to launch its cash and carry stores despite the current market instability, said Raj Jain, managing director and chief executive officer, Bharti Wal-Mart here today.

The company was fully committed to its long-term investments in India, he added. Bharti Wal-Mart is a joint venture between Bharti Enterprises and US retail giant Wal-Mart.

The company signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Punjab government to jointly establish the Bharti Wal-Mart Skill Centre (BWSC) for providing training on technical skills regarding modern retail and allied sectors like logistics, supply chain and other support services.

Speaking on the occasion, Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal said that the BWSC being set up in Amritsar would certainly act as a catalyst to promote economic and social development of local communities by imparting technical training and certification on modern retail and its allied sectors.

The joint venture, which is for wholesale cash-and-carry and back-end supply chain management operations in India, is scheduled to open its first store in Punjab in the first quarter of the next financial year. “We will be opening our first store in Punjab between April and June next year,” Jain said.The company is at present in the process of building stores in Amritsar, Jalandhar and Ludhiana.

A conventional cash and carry store will occupy 50,000 to 100,000 sq.feet and sell a wide range of fruits and vegetables, groceries, footwear, clothing and other general merchandise.The joint venture would open 15 stores in the next seven years and employ 5,000 people over the same period as according to plan.