Chinese Wal-Mart: telling porkies?

I recently retired as UK senior partner of BDO after 23 years as a partner with the firm. Last year, I took up a position as visiting professor at Xiamen University, China. My wife is Chinese and I decided to spend three months exploring business opportunities in the region and trying to learn some Mandarin.

I’m blogging about my experiences in China for Real Business – catch up on my journey so far.

Last week, I shopped for beer and wine at Wal-Mart in Chongqing; it was a shabby, busy, basement store selling everything from white goodsto food, clothing to stationery. 

Wal-Mart have been in China for 15 years, but only made its maiden profit three years ago: sales are growing at double-digit pace, but still represent less than two per cent of global turnover. 

In May, the country COO and CFO both resigned, for personal reasons, and it has now been announced that 13 stores (including “mine”) have temporarily closed, while managers help investigators who allege that pork products have incorrectly been labelled “organic”.

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