MADRID, March 19 (Xinhua) - Textile group Inditex, the world's leading clothing retailer, had a net profit of 2.377 billion euros (3.307 billion U.S. dollars) from Feb.1, 2013 to Jan. 31, 2014, which meant a 1 percent increase in comparison with the previous fiscal year, the company reported on Wednesday.

Sales of the company increased by 5 percent to a total of 16.724 billion euros, with Spain accounting for 19.7 percent of the total compared to the 20.7 percent of a year ago.

Sales of Inditex in Europe, without taking into account of Spain, accounted for 45.9 percent of the total compared to the previous 45.4 percent, while sales in Asia represented 20.4 percent of sales experiencing a 0.7 percent increase when compared with the previous fiscal year.

Sales in America accounted for 14 percent, which meant a 0.2 percent fall in comparison with the previous fiscal year.

Inditex CEO Pablo Isla said that China was one of the most important markets for Inditex while describing the inauguration of a new store in China's Hong Kong in the coming months as one of the main openings for 2014.

Inditex opened 331 new stores in 2013 in 61 different countries and regions which resulted in a total of 6,340 stores in 87 different markets. It created 8,000 job opportunities worldwide over the last fiscal year and by the end of January a total of 128,313 people were working for the company.

Inditex also announced a 10 percent dividend increase to 2.42 euros pershare.

Inditex is mainly controlled by its co-founder and the world's third wealthiest man Amancio Ortega, who owns a 59.3 percent stake in Inditex. He will earn around 895 million euros due to this dividend increase and 100 billion euros more for being part of the Board of Directors in 2013.

Inditex, whose most famous brand is Zara, also owns brands like Massimo Dutti, Bershka, Oysho, Stradivarius, Pull and Bear, or Uterque. Endi

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