TWENTY Singapore retailers are among those named the top 500 in the Asia-Pacific region in Euromonitor International's latest Retail Asia-Pacific Top 500.

NTUC FairPrice was the top Singapore retailer by sales in 138th position. It generated sales of US$885 million last year.

It was followed by the Cold Storage/Shop N Save chain owned by Dairy Farm International Holdings. The chain was at 221st place with sales of US$436 million last year.

Japan had the most retailers in the top 500, with 116 spots. China was second with 81 spots. Australia was third but made up for it by contributing US$85 billion of sales - almost 15 per cent of total sales for the entire top 500.

Total sales by the 500 were almost US$590 billion, a 5 per cent rise from 2005 that was muted by the weaker US dollar.

'Rapid economic growth is driving robust retail expansion in the big emerging markets,' said Andy Carter, director of Euromonitor International. 'Demographic and social trends are favourable too. China, India, Indonesia and the Philippines have some of the world's fastest growth rates in urbanisation and in number of households.

'Easing of retail foreign direct investment (FDI) regulatory environments continues to open more countries to international players.'

Major trends in 2006 that had a significant bearing on the list included mergers, acquisitions and divestments.

Australia's Coles Group lost its place as Australia's No 1 retailer by divesting its Myer department stores.

Another trend was established foreign retailers pulling out of demanding markets. Carrefour, for instance, left Korea and sold its outlets to local retailer E Land Corp.

Euromonitor's research manager Loo Geok Leng said a major development on Singapore's retail scene in 2006 was the Warehouse Retail Scheme project.

'This was kickstarted in Tampines with Courts Singapore, Ikea Singapore and Dairy Farm Singapore not only locating their regional operations/headquarters there but also opening mega-stores at the same location,' she said.

Retail shop sizes also appear to be moving to two extremes - very big as in the case of Vivo City, or very small, she added.

The list covered 14 Asia-Pacific economies. Research was carried out by analysts in 52 countries in the third quarter of 2006.