These include features like baby changing rooms, customer information desks, carry-to-car service and many others.

Customer satisfaction with our superstores is at levels that any retailer anywhere in the world would envy.

I say this not as an opinion, but as a matter of fact, based on the regular independent surveys of customer satisfaction that we commission.

ParknShop is also leading the way in other crucial areas. Our 'Fresh Food' campaign is bringing world-class standards of fresh food hygiene and safety to Hong Kong via an unprecedented programme of auditing and monitoring of suppliers, training and medical testing for our staff and a regime of laboratory testing food samples across our entire fresh food range.

In customer service our Shop'N Drop service offers free home delivery to any shopper spending $150 or more with us - a service unmatched in the world as far as I am aware.

Finally, as regards our supposed inability to compete with global retailers, you may have failed to notice that the world's No 2 food retailer has been trading in Hong Kong for over three years. Despite its presence, ParknShop has, in this period, built sales and market share substantially to become, by some distance, Hong Kong's leading supermarket chain.

We do not underestimate either our present or our potential future competitors. But our track record enables us to be confident in our ability to compete successfully with them, based on our continuing commitment to ever-improving standards of quality, service and value for our customers.

ANDREW BRENT Marketing Director ParknShop