World Kitchen LLC plans to focus increasingly on China which is expected to become the United States house ware product maker's biggest market in Asia within eight years as a credit crisis in its home market looks like it is getting worse, leading to fears of a possible economic slowdown.

World Kitchen, which has branches in Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou, plans to open more outlets in the middle and western regions of China by 2013, including Chongqing, Chengdu and Wuhan, where it has representative offices now, Jeffrey Mei, vice president and general manager of World Kitchen (Asia Pacific) Pte Ltd's Asia, Oceania & EMEA operations, said.

The US firm aims to capture 15 percent market share in China in five years and the country is expected to become its biggest market in Asia within eight years in terms of sales revenue, replacing South Korea, Mei said.

''It is not very easy to achieve. We target at high-end consumers here due to high costs as products are imported from the US and Europe. It means we have to get a market share of 60 to 70 percent in the high-end sector,'' Mei said.

He said sales quadrupled in China in the last two years and he is confident of fast growth continuing as the firm ''takes aggressive actions to tap the market and boost sales.''

(Shanghai Daily October 8, 2008)