Ahold to quit Indonesia

Ahold to quit Indonesia

SINGAPORE (AFP): Dutch giant Royal Ahold plans to pull out its
loss-making supermarket operations from Singapore, China and
Indonesia, a report said Saturday.

Royal Ahold, however, will expand its profitable chains in
Malaysia and Thailand, the Business Times here quoted an Ahold
spokesman in the Netherlands as saying.

"We will divest our non-profitable operations and (we) are in
the process of doing that," the spokesman said.

Ahold's Asian supermarkets chalked up sales of about 903
million Netherlands gilders (US$444.58 million) in 1998,
accounting for a mere 1.5 percent of global sales.

Its business in Asia last year posted an operating loss of
some 103 million gilders, up from a loss of 79 million gilders in
1997.

The company declined to give a breakdown of losses for
individual countries last year.

"For China, Singapore and Indonesia, we will still need many
years to be profitable," he said, adding that the group believes
it would be better off focusing on profitable operations in
Thailand and Malaysia.

Ahold currently operates some 140 supermarkets under the name
Tops in five Asian countries -- some 40 outlets each in China,
Thailand and Malaysia, 14 in Singapore and seven in Indonesia.