The supermarket industry in Lishui city – which is located in East China's Zhejiang province – is said to have already had a prosperous development history spanning 40 years and it is now looking to pave the way for another four decades or more of exciting growth.

It has reportedly always been a prosperous sector that helps improve the lives of locals – and at one point the metropolis even became known as the "home of supermarket startups in China".

A report on the development of the supermarket format in Lishui was released on Aug 24. It reviewed and summarized the growth process of the Lishui supermarket model – and provided development directions and ideas for the future transformation and evolution of the sector.

According to preliminary statistics, there are currently more than 62,000 Lishui supermarkets or chain stores in China, creating more than 240,000 jobs and generating annual turnover of more than 100 billion yuan ($15.43 billion). In addition, there are more than 60,000 overseas Chinese from Lishui's Qingtian county engaged in the industry abroad, whose businesses generate an annual turnover of more than $14 billion.

However, some challenges – such as most of the supermarkets are small in size and have few service functions, as well as a single marketing model – made them competitively weak.

Aiming to solve these problems, the report put forward development suggestions for Lishui's supermarket industry, to take it to the next stage.

It is understood that moving forwards, the city will guide and support the local supermarket industry by rolling out supportive policies. It will also promote cooperation between the local banks and supermarkets and provide technical training on running supermarkets, among other things, according to the report.