United Arab Emirates-based supermarket chain Lulu Group plans to enter the Indonesian market and will spend $300 million by the end of 2017 opening stores and a central distribution network, the firm said.

The announcement came during a visit by Indonesian President Joko Widodo, who is in the middle of a trip to the Middle East taking in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar.

Lulu Group, which operates 117 stores across the Middle East, Egypt and India, will open its first Indonesian store in Jakarta by the end of this year and plans further stores in the capital as well as in Bandung, Solo, Semarang, Surabaya and Yogyakarta, according to the statement.