C&A, a major apparel retailer, with over 1,000 stores in Europe, plans to open ten stores on the Romanian market by 2010, with the first location to be launched in 2009.
"In the first year, we estimate we'll open between 4 and 6 stores, where we need around 100 employees, and by 2010 C&A's store chain in Romania will include ten stores," Herbert Asamer, C&A spokesman for CEE, told ZF.
The first expansion phase targets Bucharest, while the rest of the stores will be opened in all the cities with over 100,000 inhabitants.
"We're trying to open our stores in high traffic areas, both in city centres and in shopping areas. Moreover, for each of our stores we need an area of around 2,000 square metres," says Asamer.
Thus, C&A will have one of the largest retail areas in Romania on the apparel and footwear segment, besides another two players that entered the Romanian market directly this year, namely Peek & Cloppenburg and Zara.
Early this year, Meinl European Land real estate developer, which acquired Shopping Center Militari project from Liebrecht&wooD, announced that one of the brands to be present, starting 2009, in the commercial gallery of the complex is C&A, besides retailers such as New&Yorker, Decathlon, Hervis or Humanic. The same list of companies is announced for the developer's Arad project to be launched in the autumn of 2009 under the name West Gate.
The retailer has already started recruiting for the first store of Bucharest. Internationally, the company has over 34,000 employees and is present in over 16 countries of Europe.
C&A, part of Cofra group operating on the real estate market and in the field of financial services, to sell apparel for grown ups and children in Romania, reported 2007 international turnover worth 6.1bn euros, up 8.3% year-on-year.
Domestically, C&A is following the trend of international companies that saw in Romania a high growth potential market and included it on their expansion map.
"After having opened stores in all the countries close to Austria, our next move targets south-eastern Europe. In the next two years, we want to enter Romania, Bulgaria and Croatia," adds Asamer.
Thus, C&A is joining the companies that entered the domestic market directly, such as Inditex retailer or Peek&Cloppenburg.
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