Retail group Carrefour announced officially its plans to construct the group’s first shopping mall in Bulgaria, Carrefour Tsarigradsko.

The mall will be the biggest mall in Bulgaria and is to be opened in 2009. It will have more than 200 stores on a gross leasable area of 66 000 sq m.

According to Monitor daily, the mall would be worth 200 million euro and be the largest on the Balkans. It would contain six floors, three of which would be underground parking. Rent prices would vary from 16 to 50 euro per sq m.

Carrefour Tsarigradsko would emphasise on competitive prices and product quality.

Local TERNA Bulgaria was chosen as the main contractor of the mall.

Jerome Loubere, managing director of Carrefour’s representative for Bulgaria Carrefour Marinopoulos, said that “the Carrefour Tsarigradsko project is a strategic investment for us. We are convinced that we have chosen the right moment to enter the Bulgarian market.”

The group also plans to open 20 hypermarkets in the country in the next five to seven years.

Monitor quoted Loubere as saying that the company would build malls only in the bigger cities like Plovdiv, Stara Zagora, Rousse, Varna and Bourgas. The company would build hypermarkets worth 10 million euro in towns, which are regional centres.

Carrefour is the biggest retail group in Europe and the second-largest retail group in the world. It has 12 000 retail stores in 30 countries and opens 50 to 60 hypermarkets annually.