French Carrefour opens hypermarket in Bucharest’s Colosseum retail park

French retailer Carrefour will on Tuesday, October 18, open a new hypermarket in Colosseum retail park in northern Bucharest, according to the company. The new Carrefour hypermarket will have an area of 8,400 sqm, more than 2,300 parking spaces and about 350 employees. The French retailer also plans to open other two hypermarkets in Romania by the end of the year, in Deva and Botosani. The Colosseum retail park in Bucharest has a total area of 53,000 sqm. This project will include a mall with over 480 shops. The mall’s construction will start in autumn 2012 and the investment amounts to EUR 350 million. Recently, the French retailer Carrefour and Romanian Angst, controlled by Romanian businessman Sorin Minea, have opened the first Carrefour Express store under franchise. The Carrefour Express Domenii opened on October 12 on Ion Mihalache Blvd. in Bucharest. Carrefour posted a growth of 7.5 percent in sales in Romania in the third quarter of this year, up to EUR 290 million, according to the company. In the first nine months of this year, Carrefour recorded an increase of 5.1 percent compared to the same period last year, to EUR 845 million, at current exchange rates. Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com (photo source: the company)