Kesko’s Takamäki reminds the working group set up by Pekkarinen about customers’ power of choice

Retailer Heikki Takamäki, Kesko Corporation’s Chairman of the Board of Directors, wishes that paying Finnish customers would be allowed to decide how, when and at what kind of stores they buy goods and services. Takamäki spoke today at Kesko Corporation’s Extraordinary General Meeting in Helsinki.

”When adopting the act on retail store opening hours in 2000, the Finnish Parliament required that a thorough report be made of the impacts of the decision on the development of the retail trade. The plan is to present the report - prepared by the working group set up by the Minister of Trade and Industry Mauri Pekkarinen - by the end of May 2005 to provide a survey of the situation, competitiveness and prospects of success of the retailing sector.

The working group assesses, among other things, the impacts of retailing hours on the structure of the retail trade and, on the basis of various studies, reviews the present state and future of the retail trade, such as store opening hours, reducing regulations concerning the construction of stores, dropping the value added tax of foodstuffs from 17 percent back to 12 percent, and allowing the inclusion of over-the-counter medicines in store selections.

Now it is the right time for the representatives of the retail trade to act and influence. I wish that we all express our viewpoints highlighting consumers’ freedom of choice. Let paying customers decide how, when and at what kind of stores they shop. This has been Kesko’s unequivocal stand for decades.”

Further information:
Heikki Takamäki, Chairman of Kesko Corporation’s Board of Directors, tel. +358 50 680 68
Erkki Heikkinen, Kesko Corporation’s Senior Vice President, Corporate Communications, tel. +358 500 615 548.