Carrefour, one of the leading retailers in Europe, will not cancel a planned rapid expansion in Bulgaria, despite the global economic crisis, sources close to the company told Dnevnik. Carrefour recently announced the conclusion of a new contract to open a 10,000 sq.m. hypermarket in the Bulgarian town of Rousse.
The hypermarket will be opened within the Grand Plaza Mall, scheduled for completion in 2010. According to Carrefour, the retailer started preparing their entrance on the Bulgarian market a few years ago and will inaugurate several units in 2009. The network will be expanded to 30 supermarkets and hypermarkets over five years.
Carrefour on 18 November fired CEO Jose Luis Duran and announced that they would focus increasingly more on expanding on emergent markets. Carrefour recently sold a commercial centre under construction in Sofia to the Greek-based investment fund Assos Capital and is planning to open supermarkets in most of the large commercial centres.
Carrefour operates nearly 15,000 hypermarkets and supermarkets in 30 countries around the world and reported sales of over 82 billion EUR in 2007. In Romania, Carrefour has 9,200 employees in the hypermarket network and over 1,000 employees in the Carrefour Express network. Last year"s turnover was 866 million EUR, up by 42.2% from 2006. In the first half of 2008, Carrefour Romania landed sales of 508 million EUR, up by 40.3% year-on-year.