Han says CapitaMalls Asia communicates and shares its expansion plans with its network of retailers, which enables retailers to expand rapidly within key cities.

"Moreover, in order to ensure that our malls stay relevant to shoppers, we continually reinvent retailers. This includes optimizing store layouts and retail offerings, refreshing the tenancy mix as well as (offering) attractive promotions to draw shoppers to our malls," Han says.

Staff challenge

Han says the company faces the same kind of challenges that any other company has: The challenge of finding experienced staff to work in management.

"A shopping mall is a local business and locals know best how to cater to the needs of their communities," Han says. "We leverage on our mall development and management expertise to train our new staff, including sending them on study trips to see how we run our malls in Singapore and to other leading retail centers such as Australia, Hong Kong and the United Kingdom to study the latest retail trends and concepts."

Today, CapitaMalls Asia has a team of about 3,000 staff members in China, of which only about 40 are foreigners.

"At present, middle managers, such as store managers, are very popular in the market," says Xiong Jie, a lecturer of corporate strategy at ESC Rennes School of Business in France.

"Expatriate managers from the home country of foreign retailers cannot understand the complexity of the China market," Xiong says. "To win in the China market, foreign retailers should rely on local talents who are well educated and understand the local purchasing behaviors," Xiong says.

As shopping centers continue to flourish in major cities across China, Taubman and other international retail developers are now actively looking to expand elsewhere within the country.

"The development trend in the next couple of years will shift further toward smaller cities as first-tier cities becoming increasingly mature," says James Hawkey of Cushman & Wakefield China.

As the market develops quickly, several shopping center developers will encounter different challenges.

yaojing@chinadaily.com.cn