Wal-Mart, Asda’s American owner, is scaling back store openings in the US and will instead focus on remodelling existing stores.
President and chief executive of the firm’s US division Eduardo Castro-Wright said that in 2009 Wal-Mart will look to open 191 stores. In the 2008 fiscal year, it opened 218 stores.
Wal-Mart said capital spending in fiscal 2009 will be about $5.8bn (£3.6m) to $6.4bn, down from $9.1bn this year.
President and chief executive Lee Scott added that the company is in a good position before Christmas even though trading conditions are getting tougher.
“It is clear in this environment that the customer is more cautious and more thoughtful about what they buy and they’re more thoughtful about when they buy it,” he said.
But Scott concluded: “We see this as an opportunity to widen our moat … this is Wal-Mart time.”
In China, Wal-Mart has said that it has stopped selling a brand of eggs because safety regulators found excessive levels of melamine in them.
The Dalian Hanwei Enterprise Group eggs have been removed from all of the company’s stores there.
Just last week, Wal-Mart said that it is setting new quality standards for its Chinese suppliers. The move came after thousands of Chinese children became ill after drinking milk containing melamine.
Tesco stopped selling a line of sweets over fears they contained the substance.
