UK department store operator Marks and Spencer has opened its first store in Beijing.

The new 1500 sqm M&S Beijing store has opened in The Place shopping centre, selling clothing and food.

M&S operates 10 stores in Shanghai and the move to Beijing is in line with a strategy to gradually expand in China’s tier 1 cities, albeit at a slower pace than originally forecast.

“We’re looking at places which are very much ‘tier 1’… where you have an upper middle class consumer base… where we will do well even in the context of a slowdown in the economy,” executive director of marketing & international, Patrick Bousquet-Chavanne said last September.

M&S has closed some smaller stores in China and is now focusing on larger stores in major cities.

It has 20 in Hong Kong.