KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 14 — The government welcomes suggestions and fresh ideas from the main players in the country’s distributive trade sector to bring about policy changes and initiatives, said Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail.

She said this could help them in making adjustments to the current retail and consumer trends, particularly in line with the rapid growth in e-commerce and the latest store concepts that differed from the traditional and conventional ones.

Dr Wan Azizah cited the example of Swedish furniture giant Ikea that recently opened its first US small-format store in New York measuring 1,600 square metres and announced plans to open 30 more such “city centre” stores. Meanwhile, she said, French hypermarket group Carrefour SA was reducing store sizes and operating costs to adapt to the e-commerce trend.

“Several innovative suggestions have been proposed by the industry players, including re-looking at the distribution centre format, retail floor area and business operation hours,” she said in her speech in conjunction with the AEON 35th anniversary dinner here tonight.

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The text of her speech was read by Water, Land and Natural Resources Minister Dr Xavier Jayakumar.

Dr Wan Azizah said foreign supermarkets and hypermarkets generated 26,829 jobs for locals and contributed RM110.3 million to the government’s tax revenue collection in 2018.

She said the service sector contributed 57 per cent to the gross domestic product in the first quarter of this year, with the wholesale and retail sector being the main growth contributor recording sales of RM321.8 billion and employing about 1.8 million people.

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Dr Wan Azizah expressed hope that the AEON group and its chain of stores would play an important and effective role in stabilising the prices of goods, especially the daily necessities, for the benefit of the people.

AEON is a leading general merchandise store-cum-supermarket operator in Malaysia with 28 AEON malls, 34 AEON stores, as well as one MaxValu and five MaxValu Prime supermarkets nationwide. — Bernama