Sinopharm, the mainland's largest drug distributor, plans to boost retail sales to more than 10 billion yuan (HK$12.5 billion) in 2016, said Li Zhiming, the state-owned firm's president.
Last year, the firm's drug retail sales rose 17.5 per cent to 4.83 billion yuan.
"We will encourage our subsidiaries in various provinces to rapidly open more stores to help our retail business grow quickly," said Wei Yulin, the chairman of the company. "In the next one or two years, we must raise the profits from our retail business.
"Our investment goal is to complete our retail and distribution network this year and next year."
Drug distribution accounted for 94.5 per cent of the company's revenue of 166.87 billion last year, after rising 23.3 per cent to 158.97 billion yuan.
Net profit rose 13.7 per cent to 2.25 billion yuan.
