A Costco store in Shenzhen, South China's Guangdong Province Photo: VCG

Costco and Sam's Club, foreign membership-only supermarkets, have recently opened new stores in China and announced expansion plans, indicating that foreign enterprises are confident about China's consumption potential and economic recovery.

Costco's newest store will open on January 12 in Shenzhen, South China's Guangdong Province, the company said on its WeChat account. The new store will be Costco's sixth in the Chinese mainland and its first physical store in the southern China region. 

Benefitting from Shenzhen's development potential and the city's position as a local economic hub, the new store will provide residents with a globalized shopping experience and boost consumption of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, the Shenzhen municipal government said in a post on its WeChat account last week. 

Zhang Shuyun, general manager of Costco's Chinese mainland division, said that China has always been an important market for the company, noting that Costco will open a new store in Nanjing, East China's Jiangsu Province, in 2024, with a trial business of a gas station. 

Another membership-only supermarket, Sam's Club, had its sixth store in Shanghai enter service on December 28, 2023. Sam's Club now has 47 stores in 25 Chinese cities, and it vowed to open six to seven stores each year in China following its development plan, according to Chinese media outlet thepaper.cn.

Walmart, Sam's Club's parent company, witnessed continued strength in Sam's Club and e-commerce in China in the third quarter of 2023, the company said on November 16, 2023 in its quarterly financial results.

Walmart's net sales in China reached $4.5 billion in the third quarter of 2023, an increase of 25.3 percent year-on-year, and the net sales of the e-commerce sector surged by 38 percent year-on-year. 

Retail sales in China during the first 11 months of 2023 reached 42.79 trillion yuan ($5.97 trillion), up 7.2 percent year-on-year, official data showed, signaling a steady recovery of consumption and the economy. 

Global Times