The British supermarket company Tesco is pursuing its expansion in Asia, investing up to US$178.5m to build nine new supermarkets in Thailand under its Tesco Lotus joint venture with CP Group, the Financial Times reports. The openings are scheduled for the end of this year. Most of the stores will be located in Bangkok. In 2000, the group opened 13 hypermarkets in Asia, bringing the total of stores to 33. Tesco is waiting for approval to trade in Malaysia. Its plans are to have 49 stores by the end of the present year. So far, Tesco has invested £500m in Thailand, making it the largest hypermarket owner in the region. Tesco Lotus is also working on a US$44m joint venture with GE Capital, an arm of US company General Electrical, to issue and administer a Tesco Lotus credit card. Source: FT
