World

Indonesia – attractive market for foreign retailers

Indonesia remains a top destination for foreign retailers, a senior market expert of the Indonesian Retail Merchants Association (Aprindo) has assessed.
Indonesia remains a top destination for foreign retailers, a seniormarket expert of the Indonesian Retail Merchants Association (Aprindo)has assessed.

Being the world’s fourth most populous country, Indonesia has a growing middle class population and more diverse demand.

The biggest Southeast Asian economy has maintained a growth rate ofover six percent for years. The growth only went down to 5.8 percent and5.6 in the second and third quarter of 2013 respectively due to theworld’s financial crisis that affected the country’s two largest tradepartners, the US and EU.

The steady growth is a factordrawing foreign retail trademarks such as Carrefour (France), Aeon (Japan) and Lotte (the Republic of Korea). Two giants IKEA (Sweden) and Courts Asia (the UK) are also planning to enter theIndonesian market next year.

IKEA is set to open itsfirst shop in Indonesia on September 17 next year and aims for 7-8percent of Indonesia’s furniture market share while Courts Asia plans toopen 10 outlets in the country in the next five years.-VNA
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