GEORGE TOWN, Jan 19 — Texas Chicken, one of the largest global fast-food restaurant chains specialsing in fried chicken, aims to expand its presence in Malaysia, especially in the northern region of Peninsular Malaysia.

Chairman of Envictus International Holdings Ltd, Datuk Jaya JB Tan, said following the opening of its first outlet in Penang here today, Texas Chicken Malaysia wanted to open another one in Kedah.

"Everything is in the planning stage now and location is our main concern.

With the new outlet here, we now have 34 restaurants nationwide.

"This is an important milestone for us and there will be more Texas Chicken outlets in the pipeline for this year.

"We have received tremendous demand from our Facebook fans requesting us to open in Penang and we have made the decision to operate our business in the northern region of Peninsular Malaysia after Klang Valley,” he told a press conference after the outlet’s opening in 1st Avenue Mall.

Tan said Texas Chicken had invested between RM1 million and RM2 million to open each new outlet to ensure high standards were met.

Meanwhile, General Manager Asia-Pacific Texas Chicken, Amarpal Sandhu, said the company wanted to expand its business to one or two countries annually and was looking at Cambodia, Myanmar, India and the Phillipines.

"We have aggressive growth plans for the region. We have outlets in Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, New Zealand, Pakistan and Laos.

"We have overwhelming support across Asia as we serve the freshest chicken and daily fresh-baked biscuits in our outlets,” he said. — Bernama