US retail behemoth Wal-Mart has expressed its intention to procure more food and textile products from China over the next five years.
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Cui Renfu, president of the company’s global procuring office, explained that Wal-Mart stopped outsourcing last month. From the start of this month, the company began transferring its commodities and procuring networks to China to procure directly from Chinese suppliers.
China is technically Wal-Mart’s largest procuring market for textile products, producing 80% of the raw materials used by the company. However, quota restrictions have led Wal-Mart to import materials from other nations.
Within five years of the lifting of this restriction, however, Wal-mart expects to be able to procure larger quantities of textiles from China.
Furthermore, Cui revealed that as Wal-Mart becomes established in China, the company would start to centre the organisation for its operations in Shanghai. The city is an important choice for the final location of its global procuring headquarters, currently relocating to Shenzhen temporarily.
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By GlobalDataA procuring centre will also be established in Shanghai in the second quarter of this year.
