"Spar“ arrives in Serbia - investments in Subotica, Novi Sad, Belgrade... Ramstor starts in Niš

The largest Austrian supermarket chain "Spar“ will soon start to open trade centers in Serbia. The Austrians will have its first trade center in Serbia built either in Subotica or in Novi Sad, which should be followed by construction of the supermarket in Belgrade. As a matter of fact, the largest shopping center in the Balkans will be built in the capital city of Serbia.

People in "Spar“ say that they have been thinking about entering our market for a long time and that, following the talks with the former Minister of Trade, Predrag Bubalo, in mid-2008, they realized that Serbia was an excellent market and that their hypermarkets would be able to attract large number of buyers in short time. That led to the agreement on "Spar's“entrance to the local market.

We first planned to open our branch offices in smaller towns without larger trade centers, but we can now say that the first trade center will be built in Vojvodina - people in "Spar“ explain.

President of the Commission for Protection of Competition, Dijana Marković-Bajalović, says that it is good that such big company enters our market and that it will result in stronger competition, improvement of services and decrease in prices of products.

- I hope that the buyers in Serbia will finally be able to choose between several suppliers. Also, we don't know the scope of investments of these new market chains in Serbia. Construction of only one hypermarket does not mean a thing. Serbia needs much more - says Dijana Marković-Bajalović.

She is of the opinion that the main reasons for delayed arrival of foreign market chains in Serbia are various physical and technical obstacles and that their removal, that is, introduction of various benefits, will increase the competition in Serbia.

By the way, "Spar“ is the largest supermarket chain in Austria with nearly 1,000 facilities in that country, another 500 in Italy and about 280 in Slovenia, Hungary, Czech Republic and Croatia. "Spar's" markets employ about 25,000 people.

In addition to "Spar“, Turkish "Ramstor“ also plans to open trade center in Niš. This Turkish company already has its facilities in Macedonia and it invested over 35m EUR in the shopping center in Skopje. "Ramstor“ is a part of Turkish "Migros“, which has retail facilities in Russia, Azerbeijan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. It also closed three facilities in Bulgaria last year.

People in the Ministry of Trade and Services say that the construction of first facilities of "Spar“ should commence by the end of the year.

note : this text was taken from daily newspaper BLIC of September 21, 2008