BEIJING, China (Reuters) -- Employees of U.S. retail giant Wal-Mart have set up their first trade union in China, a move analysts say could lead to more unionization in the sector.

Twenty-five employees of a Wal-Mart store in Quanzhou, in the southeastern province of Fujian, established the union, a branch of the state-controlled All-China Federation of Trade Unions, on Saturday, Xinhua news agency reported.

"One of the major tasks of the ACFTU in 2006 is to push foreign-funded or transnational companies to unionize," Xinhua cited Xu Deming, the union's vice-president, as saying.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which set up shop in China in 1996 and employs more than 30,000 people at stores across the country, has long resisted pressure in the United States to unionize its workers there.

But analysts said that in China, where independent trade unions are illegal, the move at the Wal-Mart store in Quanzhou may signal a push toward unionization in the retail sector.

China has in past threatened foreign firms with blacklists and legal action if they did not set up trade unions at their China units, but Gruetzner said he thought the Wal-Mart case was more about developing the services sector.