More McDonald’s Thailand restaurants are in the pipeline under a plan by national franchise-holder McThai aimed at almost doubling sales by 2020.

At least 5 billion baht (US$140.8 million) will be spent to nearly double the number of outlets over the next five years.    

CEO Hester Chew has told the Bangkok Post that about 1 billion baht will be spent each year opening stores and upgrading with a target of 400 stores by 2020. The store count at the end of last year was 223.

This year’s budget includes about 900 million baht pegged for 25 new stores, half of which will be drive-through outlets. This is creating jobs for about 1000 people.

Already this year four new outlets have started trading in Bangkok and in the north of Thailand.

Chew says the aim is to grow sales at a double-digit rate this year, as the group had single-digit sales growth last year in the face of lower consumer spending, higher costs and increased competition with more local and international food brands being established.

“We will continue to invest, no matter whether consumer spending power is good or not, particularly on people training and product quality, which are the two areas where we never compromise,” says Chew, who believes the Thai economy will improve this year with a stimulus economic package from the government.

McDonald’s has been in the Thai market for 30 years. The food giant has more than 35,000 restaurants serving 70 million people in more than 100 countries each day.