New Europe Property Investments (NEPI) and Carrefour Property (CFP), which invested EUR 65 million in Shopping City Mall in Ploiesti, will open the center in November 2012. Carrefour Property is looking for additional locations for other retail projects in Romania.

Construction work in Ploiesti, where Carrefour runs a hypermarket, began in December 2011.  Zara, H&M, Massimo Dutti, Pull and Bear, Bershka, Oysho, Stradivarius, Orsay, Office Shoes, Benvenuti, Lee Cooper and Reserved are some of the retailers in the project. The project is now 70 percent leased and should reach over 90 percent at the end of June. A Cinema City cinema will be opened, along with restaurants, cafés, bowling, billiards/pool and a casino.

“This is only the first mall type project and we hope that soon others will follow, so we are already looking for new locations. This year we won't open any other malls like this one in Ploiesti, which completes the existing hypermarket, but we are still searching”, said Anca Damour, General Manager Carrefour Property of Romania.

New Europe Property Investments (NEPI) owns office buildings, commercial centers and industrial properties mainly in Romania where the group has been active since 2007 . Listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange, the fund has already opened the commercial center Promenada Mall in Braila, an extension of the commercial gallery from Pitesti Retail Park and also bought land near the hypermarket Carrefour Brasov where it built a retail park.

Carrefour Property is present in 32 countries in the world, having 9,500 shops with 475,000 of employees. In Romania, Carrefour has 25 hypermarkets and 52 supermarkets, as well as five shops under franchise. Carrefour also has four commercial centers in the cities Brasov, Ploiesti and Bucharest.

Ioana Toader, ioana.toader@romania-insider.com