Customers with shopping bags walk out of a Wal-Mart Supercenter in Beijing October 17, 2006. Foreign retailers are rushing to tap China's fast-growing economy, large population and expanding middle class. [Reuters]

Wal-Mart's top international executive said Tuesday that the world's largest retailer wants to tackle China the way its founder, Sam Walton, did in the United States -- by offering a slew of items at a resonable price.

"You have to be excited by China. That's where Wal-Mart can win," Mike Duke, chief executive of Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s international division, said at a meeting with Wall Street analysts.

Duke was responding to questions about reports that Wal-Mart Stores Inc. wants to expand in China by offering about US$1 billion for a chain of 100 combination merchandise and grocery stores, or hypermarkets.

News reports citing unnamed sources have said Wal-Mart is bidding for the hypermarkets from Taiwanese company Trust-Mart.

Duke declined to comment on the reports.

"Clearly you know our position on acquisitions. We cannot make any comment today on any acquisition including an acquisition on something named Trust-Mart," he told analysts on the second day of the company's investor meeting in Teaneck, N.J., across the Hudson River from Manhattan.

A Trust-Mart deal would vault Wal-Mart past its rival, Carrefour SA of France, in the number of hypermarkets in China.

Foreign retailers are rushing to tap China's fast-growing economy, large population and expanding middle class.

Duke said Wal-Mart was on track to open 25 stores in China by the end of this fiscal year on January 31, adding to 52 it had at the start of the year.

Duke said Wal-Mart sees an opportunity to prosper in China by offering a better standard of living to shoppers in the form of more goods at a better price.

"There is a great opportunity for Wal-Mart to do in China what Sam Walton did in the United States and is still doing today with the Wal-Mart stores in the US, and that's really bringing a product at a better value to the customer," Duke said.