"We are looking at the possibility of working with somebody with an international presence," said Bob Simpson, Asda's head of development.
The retailer already has partnering agreements with Carillion, Laing, Pearce and HBG. Simpson wants to include Japanese contractor Kajima as an international partner after its success in building Asda's Swansea store in record time.
Simpson said Wal-Mart, which has stores in Germany and is planning to expand elsewhere in Europe, wants to develop a standard store for the American and European markets. He said: "There will be some global resourcing of checkouts, for example, and IT will be standardised." Asda also plans to grow in the UK. "There is going to be an acceleration of our build plan," said Mike Abel, general manager of research and development.
