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BEIJING (Reuters) - China is determined to introduce trade unions in all local Wal-Mart stores, despite the retail giant's opposition to unions among its workers, a Chinese labor official said in state media on Wednesday.

Employees of a Wal-Mart store in Quanzhou, in the southeastern province of Fujian, established a branch of the state-controlled All-China Federation of Trade Unions on Saturday - the first such union in the U.S. company's spreading China operations.

Wal-Mart has rebuffed the federation's efforts to expand into its stores, and since the Saturday announcement company executives have said they were unaware of the latest move.

But an official union organizer told the Beijing Daily that China would press forward with an effort to unionize all Wal-Mart stores.

"Establishing this trade union in Wal-Mart was just the beginning," said Guo Wencai, director of the grassroots organization department of the Federation of Trade Unions. "Our goal is to cover every store with a trade union organization."

Wal-Mart has resisted trade unions in most of its worldwide operations and has said it listens to the needs of its Chinese workers and does not need the official trade union to step in.

But Guo indicated this was not enough.

"Even if nobody proposes setting one up, this organization must still exist," he said, adding that the state union would hold a publicity campaign among Wal-Mart employees.

China has previously threatened foreign firms with blacklists and legal action if they did not set up unions in their local operations. Only about one quarter of the 150,000 or so foreign firms in China have unions, the Beijing Daily said.

The paper cited another Chinese trade union official as saying its goal is to raise this level to 50 percent.