Economic Observer Online
July 17, 2012
Translated by Yiu Tsz Man
Original article: [Chinese]

 
British health foods chain Holland & Barrett plans to invest £50 million (500 million yuan) in China, as it follows a Shanghai launch with 328 store openings at prefectural cities across the country.

H&B, which has annual sales of £3 billion (30 billion yuan), is seeking a share of China’s 600 billion yuan market for health food, health supplies and health service.

 
The China Health Care Association, which made that estimate for the market size, expects nutrition and health food sales to reach 1 trillion yuan by the end of 2015.

 
That represents year-on-year growth of 20 percent, but China has a long way to go before it catches up with developed countries, where the health industry typically represents 15 percent of gross domestic product, compared to only 4 percent in China

H&B’s China strategy is unusual because the retail chain will be providing exactly the same services here as it does in its more developed home market.

 
Ming-Yan Wei, the president of Britain's East Asian Business Council, said British business have gained confidence through regular trade with China.

 
Apart from H & B, there are still a number of UK's leading brands in negotiations to entering the Chinese market, said Ming-Yan Wei, a 35-year-old ethnic Chinese who sits in the Houses of Parliament as a member of the House of Lords.

 
Links and Sources
The Economic Observer: 英國保健品巨頭登陸中國 5年內全線覆蓋地級城市