At the end of a year that started with the toughest quarter forDIY retailers on slumping sales, store networks will bookinvestments of around 200m euros in 14 new stores, 35m euros morethan in 2009.
Operators brought around 400m euros in new expansion projectsduring the crisis, considering where they annually raise 2bn eurosfrom the market from population's consumption.
Just one of the eight DIY store networks in Romania has so farreached satisfactory market coverage, Praktiker, while the crisiscaught the others with large expansion plans on paper.
On a market of 22 million consumers, retailers spent almost 400meuros on expansion during the crisis, but were forced to surviveonly on the basis of small projects.
Despite retailers' expectations of a market decline by around 15%in 2010 against 2009, completed expansion investments are rising.
Players say they are getting ready for the coming years'consumption increases.
Six out of eight retailers are set to open stores in 2010. Ambientand Hornbach are the only retailers that are not expanding thisyear.
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