Thai retailer Central Food Retail plans further expansion with more than 60 stores to be added this year.

Supermarket chain Central Food Retail said it will earmark 1 billion baht to open 12 to 15 stores under the Tops Market, Central Food Hall and Tops Supermarket banners and 50 more Tops Daily stores.

The company currently operates 232 stores, 129 of them Tops Daily convenience stores.

Following the joint venture agreement between its parent company Central Retail Corporation and Japan’s FamilyMart, some of the Tops Daily stores will be converted into FamilyMart convenience stores.
However, the company has not yet decided which branches are to be converted, according to VP for marketing and public relations Phattaraporn Phenpraphat.

Meanwhile, Central Retail Corporation plans to roll out more than 200 new FamilyMart stores this year, taking the store count to 1000, and expanding its network to 3000 stores by 2017.

Central’s expansion will benefit from the anticipated growth 10-12 per cent growth in Thailand’s retail sales this year. Domestic consumption is forecast to increase as a consequence of daily minimum wage rise.