The head of operations with Billa, the biggest supermarketnetwork on the market, sees a "cascade" of consumption declines inthe following months and says the first signals of a consumptionpick-up will only come after a period of market stabilisation.Nevertheless, the retailer plans to speed up expansion in 2011 andis watching the market for store acquisitions. "There's a cascadeof consumption slumps in all the fields, which, once started, ishard to halt: salary cuts are likely to lead to falling turnoverfor many players in the private sector, which in their turn willprobably have to cut their employees' salaries or downsizepersonnel, which will hurt consumption, too," states FilipCristescu, the COO of Billa Romania, a company with 288m-euroturnover in 2009. The supermarket network this year counts onturnover similar with that of 2009 as it bets on expansion thisyear, too. Eight of the 15 new projects on the list of 2010expansion have been already finalised, driving the network to atotal number of 51 stores. "We see a potential of over 200 Billasupermarkets on the Romanian market," says Cristescu.
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