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Our Bureau

Ahmedabad, Aug. 14

Launching its first hypermarket in India, called RelianceMart, the Fortune 500 company Reliance Retail Ltd on Tuesday announced to open more than 500 hypermarkets across the country by 2010, encompassing some 100 million sq. ft of shopping area.

Thirty of these marts will be opened by the end of this year, while the smaller towns will have ‘Reliance Town Centres’. With the full implementation of the existing plans, the company would have national footprint in urban and rural India encompassing around 1,500 towns and cities by 2010. The first mart will be open to the public from Wednesday.

The company is eyeing the retail cake in India, which is projected to increase from $300 billion to $427 billion in 2010 and $637 billion by 2015. India has the highest retail density in the world, with 12 million outlets of 100 to 500 sq. ft size.

However, the company has ruled out the franchising model or its forays abroad, as of now. After the launch of the supermarket format Reliance Fresh and the consumer electronics concept mega-store Reliance Digital, the hypermarket is the third retail format launched by Reliance Retail Ltd.

Reliance is also set to re-launch its famous fabric brand Vimal, next month, across India in a big way, the Group President, Mr Parimal Nathwani, announced here at a news conference. It is also set to roll out speciality apparel stores before December.

Mr Raghu Pillai, President (Operations), said Reliance Retail would be employing around five lakh people in India, becoming the biggest employer after agriculture. The company was investing Rs 25,000 crore in creating infrastructure and supply chain.

Apart from the existing 240 outlets of Reliance Fresh, the company is set to open another 1,200 such vegetables and fruit stores in the next few months. Of these, four stores are being opened in Kolkata next week.

For maintaining smooth supplies to its various format stores, Reliance would set up 62 national storage and logistics centres across the country in the next two to three years.

The Ahmedabad Mart, spread across more than 1.65 lakh sq. ft of shopping area, carries a range of more than 95,000 products, providing an international shopping experience, according to Reliance officials. It also offers services such as tailoring, shoe and watch repair, a photo shop, bakery, gifts and laundry services, all under one roof.

More Stories on : Retailing | Reliance Industries Ltd

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