UAE's Lulu Group to expand into Southeast Asia

UAE-based Lulu Group has announced it plans to venture into retail business in Southeast Asia with 10 new hypermarkets to be built in the next two years.

The company has announced that it will make an initial investment of close to Dh1.1 billion in Malaysia as part of its expansion plan.

An announcement to this effect was made during the official luncheon hosted by the Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak for the visiting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Kuala Lumpur on Monday.

The first hypermarket will be built in Kuala Lumpur and will start operations by February 2016, and new recruits from Malaysia will be brought to its retail outlets in the Middle East for training, the announcement said.

Yusuffali MA, Chairman and Managing Director of Lulu Group said, "We plan to initially invest RM 1.3 billion ($300 million) in rolling out 10 hypermarkets in the next 2 years and gradually expand to all parts of Malaysia."

Lulu Group currently operates 118 hypermarkets and shopping malls in the Middle East and India.

"Our hypermarkets encompass both supermarket & department store formats and we intend to bring a whole new world of shopping to the residents of Malaysia. Globally, we employ more than 35,000 people from different nations and our projects here will provide employment to 5,000 Malaysians. To better equip Malaysian citizens employed by us, we will train them in all our hypermarkets here and will also take them to our other outlets in the Middle East," Yusuffali said.

During the Malaysian Prime Minister's visit to UAE last year, he had visited Lulu Hypermarket in Abu Dhabi. Lulu Group also said that it is one of the biggest importers of Malaysian agricultural products and non-food products to the Middle East.

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