Retail attracting half a billion euros now

The big retailers in Romania, which in the past ten years made up a 7-8 billion-euro annual market have half a billion euros left for investments this year, although the times when shoppers were filling up baskets with products are over.

Modern retail is gaining increasingly more ground in Romania, with the tens of companies vying Romanian buyers’ money having both reasons for concern and for hope, writes BUSINESS Magazin weekly (www.businessmagazin.ro).
In 2010 household spending on fast moving consumer goods fell 5% against the previous year, according to a survey conducted by market research company GfK. Trying to adapt to financial difficulties, “consumers have reduced the volume of the purchase basket. In 2010 they went shopping less often and only bought necessities,” says Raluca Răschip, consumer goods director of GfK Romania. At present temperance is the word of the day for most households, and the results of retail chains are a clear illustration of this.
Even so, there are companies who decided the present was favourable to expansion. That is why 2010 promises tens of new stores; the investment budgets amount to hundreds of millions of euros. Cora, Carrefour, Kaufland, as well as the chains controlled by Dinu Patriciu (Mic.ro and Minimax Discount, which will be rebranded Mac.ro) are coming up with this year’s biggest budgets.