Russian jeweller Sokolov has opened its first store in China, it announced on Tuesday, following through on a planned pivot to Asia as access to Western markets dwindles.

Sokolov had been planning to launch a retail network in Germany last year but changed tack as Western markets shunned Russian businesses after Moscow dispatched troops to Ukraine in February last year.

The shop in a Shanghai mall is the first part of a three-store pilot project in China, Sokolov said in a statement, and makes Sokolov the first Russian jeweller to enter China’s offline retail market.

Should the pilot be successful, the company plans to open another 30-50 stores in China within the next two to three years, Sokolov said.

Sokolov told Reuters late last year that the target to open 30-50 stores in China was for 2023. It did not say why the time frame for store openings had been lengthened.

Sokolov said in November that it planned to list its shares on Moscow Exchange in the second half of 2023.

• Reporting by Olga Popova; Writing by Alexander Marrow; Editing by Conor Humphries, of Reuters.