Reliance announces start of India's answer to Wal-Mart

India's Reliance may open retail store in Sept
Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani. India's biggest private company Reliance Industries said it aims to launch its first store next month as part of a plan to build an Indian version of Wal-Mart, the world's largest retail chain.

NEW DELHI, Aug 18 (Reuters) - India's Reliance Retail Ltd., a unit of Reliance Industries Ltd. , is likely to open its first outlet in September in the southern city of Hyderabad, a senior company official said on Friday.
The store will sell basic groceries, Reliance Retail President Raghu Pillai told reporters.

Reliance Industries, India's top petrochemicals firm with a market value of about $32 billion, said in June it would invest $5.6 billion in retail, selling everything from food to clothes to travel services in convenience stores and supermarkets across the country.

Pillai said Reliance Retail would reach 100 stores "very quickly", but declined to give a precise timeframe.

He told an industry conference the country's 100 million urban poor, which included motorised rickshaw drivers and cloth dyers, had a potential to generate annual revenues of 2.5 trillion rupees ($54 billion) for the retail sector.

"We need to look at them as a consuming class who have the same dreams, the same aspirations, the same hopes for their children," he saidThey are creative entrepreneurs who work for a daily wage."

However, Reliance Retail has no immediate plans to cater to that market