Aeon Co. will cut spending on stores at home and slow expansion in China as it battles the worst retail market in at least three decades, Chief Financial Officer Masaaki Toyoshima said.
Japan's largest supermarket chain will delay a target for 100 China stores by two years until February 2012 and reduce its three-year, ¥800 billion capital spending plan.
"This is the toughest climate I've seen," Toyoshima said in an interview Monday at Aeon's headquarters in Chiba Prefecture. "It's looking tougher by the month."