US supermarket giant Wal-Mart is to enter the Indian retail market after announcing a joint agreement with India's Bharti Enterprises. The two companies said they had signed a deal to "jointly explore business opportunities" in India.
Bharti chairman Sunil Mittal said the two companies intended to open "several hundred" stores across India under the
Wal-Mart brand name.Wal-Mart's deal comes after Britain's Tesco ended talks with Bharti. Large overseas retailers such as Tesco and Wal-Mart are currently barred at the retail level in India, but not in the wholesale market.Bharti's agreement with Wal-Mart is likely to run into opposition from India's small shopkeepers, who currently account for the majority of retail sales, said BBC World Service economics correspondent Andrew Walker.
'They are often family businesses and they are worried that lowering the barriers to Wal-Mart and others might cost them dearly,' he said.http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6186930.stm
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