French hypermarket group Carrefour and German cash & carry group Metro will both open new stores in Brasov within one week and only a few hundred metres of each other. The combined value of the investments is over 40 million euros.
This will make the entrance area to Brasov even more crowded, as it is already home to a Selgros cash & carry store, which is owned by German group Rewe, several car showrooms (Seat, Peugeot, Ford and Mercedes), a Mobexpert furniture store, and a Romstal store - all within several hundred metres of each other.
Carrefour and Metro, which can be counted among the top foreign investors in Romania, announced they would each open new stores in Brasov this autumn as part of their development strategy for the entire country.
Carrefour will open its first store outside Bucharest on October 20, while Metro is to open its second Brasov store, which will be the twentieth store in its network, a mere five days later. The total value of the two new investments will exceed 40 million euros.
This year also saw a series of car showrooms and a Praktiker bricolage store open in the same area following investments of over 10 million euros. This was preceded over three years ago by the opening of a Selgros cash & carry store by the German group Rewe in an investment worth 16.5 million euros. Romanian furniture producer and retailer Mobexpert also opened a store in the same area in a 1.5 million euro investment. A Romstal store and various car showrooms for dealers of Peugeot, Seat, Ford and Mercedes also set up in the area. French group Bresson, owner of the Bricostore network, is now also considering investing in a Bricostore store in an investment of between 6 and 10 million euros.
By early next year, people driving from Sinaia to Brasov will be able to go shopping at a hypermarket (Carrefour), choose between one of the two cash&carry stores placed close to each other (Selgros and Metro), visit one of the two bricolage stores on either side of the highway (Praktiker and Bricostore), and drop in at a Mobexpert or Romstal store.
Given that Brasov has only 300,000 inhabitants, too few to justify such large investments alone, what is behind the mass opening of stores in this area? The answer may lie with the potential for tourists, who can visit the mountain resorts of the Prahova Valley - Predeal (25km) and Sinaia (50km) being less than one hour's of drive away - or even Poiana Brasov; all areas that are all within short distances of each other. ionut.bonoiu@zf.ro
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