Sawasdee krub to everyone here in Bangkok. Thank you for joining us today to mark this important milestone for IKEA in Southeast Asia. We are very excited to be here with you for the groundbreaking of our second retail store in Thailand.
(Sebastian to welcome any special dignitaries with us on that day. Final names to be confirmed)
Over the last four years, Thai customers have responded very positively to the IKEA store in Bangna, and the new Pick-Up and Delivery Point that we opened in Phuket in November has been a great success. People love our functional home furnishings, our unique take-it-home concept, and even our Swedish meatballs. Now we are ready to expand our business!
Over the next 18 months or so, our team will transform this vacant plot into a vibrant store. We are creating the world’s best integration of an IKEA store into a shopping centre. IKEA Bangyai will be the only store that offers customers an opportunity to enter and checkout of the store at every level of a mall. This format is really putting our customers at the heart of our design.
This IKEA store will also reach new heights in Thailand in terms of sustainable construction and operations. We are committed to constructing a truly ‘green’ building, and are investing in solar panels that will churn out renewable energy right here from our rooftop. Our ambition is to have IKEA Bangyai certified to the highest level of global standards.
This project is worth 6.3 billion baht - and of course our investment does not end with the construction project. We are happy to be creating more than 400 quality retail jobs in the future, with hundreds more spin-off jobs for service providers and vendors.
We are particularly excited to doing all of this as an anchor tenant at CPN’s Central Westgate Shopping Centre. This location is fantastic with direct links to two BTS stations. That, along with the strong retail mix that CPN has secured, will make this the best one-stop shopping destination in West Bangkok – and we thank our partners for their trust and collaboration. It’s great to be working with such as Khun Isa, who is here with us today, as well others at Central Pattana.
Thanks also to all of your for your interest and support for IKEA. We look forward to seeing you all back here again when we open IKEA Bangyai at the end of 2017!