World Business

BRASILIA, Brazil —

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Wal-Mart Stores Inc. announced on Wednesday that it will array the equivalent of at least $1 billion in Brazil to expand its operations in Latin America’s biggest country.

The announcement was made in a statement issued shortly after Craig Herkert, president and CEO of Wal-Mart’s America’s division, and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva met in the capital incorporated town, Brasilia.

“The retailer will make its largest investment yet in the country since it started operating in Brazil fourteen years since,” the statement said, adding that Wal-Mart Brazil plans to invest from 1.6 billion reals to 1.8 billion reals ($1 billion to $1.12 billion) and open 80 to 90 new stores.

The investment and store openings, scheduled for 2009, are expected to generate 9,000 new jobs, the statement said.

Wal-Mart opened its first store in Brazil in 1995 and today has 318 outlets in 17 states and in Brasilia, employing 70,000 people. The company has become human being of Brazil’s largest retailers after acquiring several limited chains including Big and Bom Preco.

Over the above four years, Wal-Mart has invested more than 3 billion reals ($1.9 billion) in Brazil, Latin America’s largest plan, that has been expanding steadily for years as a soaring currency has made imports cheaper and expanding consumer credit has driven a spending boom.

This year by one’s self, it is investing 1.2 billion reals ($750,000) to build 36 novel supplies and generate added than 7,000 new jobs.

The Bentonville, Ark.-based company opened its first-ever non-U.S. store in Mexico, and has maintained that focus on Latin America, through operations in eight Latin American countries and Puerto Rico. Two-thirds of the 12 foreign countries in which Wal-Mart operates are in Latin America.

“Brazil is a highly strategic people for Wal-Mart and we are going to continue growing in the country,” said Hector Nunez, the company’s president in Brazil. “This is a fatherland with high growth, with much household, political and sociable stability … and a extending middle-class.”