She said the majority of the new bookstores would be in the Klang Valley, and the remaining ones would be in Johor Bahru, Malacca and in East Malaysia.

Berjaya Books is a subsidiary of Berjaya Corporation Bhd, which has the distinction of being the first franchisee of global book retailer Borders Inc.

It opened the first Borders bookstore at Berjaya Times Square followed by another outlet at The Curve last year.

Borders in Penang

"We are looking at opening up two outlets in the Klang Valley in 2007, in addition to our existing two stores there," she said at the official opening of Borders at a sea-fronting mall in Penang on Dec 13. It is the third Borders outlet in the country.

“However, our future outlets might not be of a ‘mega store' concept (20,000 sq ft and above) as we are still a relatively new player in the local market,” she said.

Yong said Berjaya Books invested about RM5 million on the 21,000 sq ft Penang outlet, having over 200,000 books, magazines, and movie and music titles. "We are positioning ourselves to become a lifestyle store where the environment is cosy, warm, lively yet serene so that customers will keep coming back to us," she said, adding that they were attempting to get more Malaysians accustomed to the reading culture. She said for 2007, Borders would be bringing in more titles in the areas of business, self-help and fiction as these were the areas of most interest for the Malaysian public, adding that the market for Japanese comics known as manga was also picking up.

"We have great expectations for Penang as it is a thriving industrial and commercial hub of the northern region," she added.