McD Opens Hamburger U, Shanghai

A McDonald's in Beijing, photo/Hector Garcia

McDonald’s plans to double its presence in China. To help support its efforts, it opened a new training center on Tuesday for restaurant managers in Shanghai, China’s most populous city.

McDonald's Corp. inaugurated its first Hamburger University in China on Tuesday to train new generations of managers as foreign companies step up efforts to develop and keep Chinese talent. China is McDonald's Inc.'s fastest-growing global market, said Tim Fenton, the company's president for Asia, Pacific, Middle East and Africa. He said the country's $300 billion-a-year "informal eating out" market is expanding at an annual rate of 10 percent, compared with 2 to 3 percent in the United States. “It's because of China's strategic importance to McDonald's that we have chosen to have our new Hamburger University in Shanghai," said Fenton. – AP

McDonald’s plans to double its presence in China within three years, according to Dow Jones and reported in FoxBusiness. That’s roughly from one thousand restaurants now to two thousand in 2013. KFC is the major foreign quick service restaurant in China, with 2,800 locations.