Carrefour Romania, the local subsidiary of French retailer Carrefour, will borrow EUR 60 million from its main shareholder Carrefour Netherland B.V., according to the Official Journal.

The company didn’t specify what it will do with the money.

Carrefour resumed the expansion in Romania in August by opening its 23rd hypermarket in Drobeta Turnu Severin, after a year and a half in which the retailer didn’t open any large unit. The company has been opening supermarkets under the Carrefour Market brand since the beginning of the year and now runs 28 supermarkets.

Carrefour posted sales of EUR 270 million in the third quarter of the year in Romania, which was a drop of 2.1 percent compared to the same period of last year. The retailer’s like-for-like sales went down by 6.1 percent, but these were balanced by the group’s expansion.

Sales were better than in the second quarter when they fell by 5.8 percent to EUR 265 million. In the first nine months of this year, Carrefour reported total sales of EUR 804 million, 1.7 percent lower than in the first nine months of 2009 at constant exchange rates.

editor@romania-insider.com