IKEA mulls JB store in 2 years

Swedish furniture giant IKEA plans to open its third Malaysian store in Johor Baharu in the next two years.

IKEA Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand Managing Director Christian Rojkjaer said however the plan is still at a preliminary stage.

"Who knows, we could have the Johor store up and running in two years," he told reporters after the official opening of IKEA's Cheras store here today.

The company has land in Johor and Perak, and is always open to the idea of setting up a manufacturing plant in Malaysia, he said.

"It would depend on the volume of products and sales, and whether it would be economical, but we see the trend (increase in volume) here.

"Malaysia has become more competitive and the more volume we have, the higher the possibility of having a factory here since transportation costs would be lower and it would be more sustainable," he added.

Asked on the impact of the weaker ringgit on its product prices, Rojkjaer said the company believes the local currency would rebound in future.

"Malaysia's fundamentals are still strong and we do not take the ringgit's value into consideration (for investment and product prices), even though most of our products are imported.

"But if the currency continues its trend (depreciating), we will see some impact" he added.

The new 42,000 sq. m. Cheras store on Jalan Cochrane features 56 showrooms and offers 8,500 products.