(Yicai Global) Feb. 26 -- British retail giant Tesco has sold the remaining 20 percent of its China joint venture to China Resources as it departs the world's second-largest economy.

Tesco will earn GBP275 million (USD357 million) from the sale and use this to help focus on core operations, Beijing Daily cited the firm as saying yesterday.

Tesco entered China in 2004 but failed to grasp the Chinese market, so it set up a joint venture with state-backed China Resources in 2014, with the local firm holding an 80 percent stake.

The Hertfordshire county-based company has also withdrawn from Japan, the United States and South Korea, and in December said it was re-thinking its operations in Thailand and Malaysia, its only remaining Asian markets. Exiting those two countries would give Tesco more firepower to focus on its European operations in Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovenia.

Editor: James Boynton