The world top retailer, Wal-Mart, will open another 13 stores in China next year to increase the total to 62, the Economic Daily reported Tuesday.

These 13 stores, most at shopping plazas besides and including one or two Sam Club stores, will be scattered in the current operating regions of Wal-Mart in China, said President and CEO of Wal-Mart Lee Scott Monday in Beijing, the last stop of his annual trip to China, which covered some major cities of the country including Shanghai, Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei Province, and Changsha, capital of central China's Hunan Province.

Besides developing the great potential of metropolitan cities like Beijing and Shanghai, Wal-Mart has also been paying much attention to China's medium- and small-sized cities and is planning to move westward with a view to the country's surging economic growth, said Lee Scott.

Wal-Mart pledged to practise a universal standard inside and outside the United States in its service and the use of newly introduced environment-friendly packaging material, the Economic Daily reported.

The new corn plastic packages that can be degraded and reused and were introduced into all packaging in the U.S. Wal-Mart stores on Tuesday, will be put into use in China too according to a timetable currently being worked on, Lee Scott said.

The Chinese market is ranked No. 1 among Wal-Mart's overseas outsourcing.

Wal-Mart has 27,000 employees in China, and only four of them are foreign nationals.

Initially a little cautious in its development in China, Wal-Mart has opened 49 stores in 23 cities so far, including Beijing, Shanghai, southwest China's Chongqing Municipality, Shenzhen city in South China's Guandong Province, and Dalian of northeastern Liaoning Province.

(Xinhua News Agency November 2, 2005)