First Carrefour retailer to open in Albania

TIRANA, July 6 – France based Carrefour, the leading European retailer and the second largest worldwide, says it will open its first hypermarket in Albania next November. This was confirmed by Christian Charitat, the executive director of Carrefour Group during a meeting with Prime Minister Sali Berisha. The Prime Minister’s press office says the Carrefour centre will operate in 7,000 km2 site offering a variety of food and textile products. Christian Charitat said the group’s policy will be combining import products and promoting Albanian products, especially agri-industrial ones. Describing Carrefour’s investments as very important for Albania, Prime Minister Berisha underlined the fact that the company will initially hire 550 people and it plans to extend their activity to other Albanian cities. Last year Carrefour and Marinopoulos announced the creation of a joint venture to develop hypermarkets and supermarkets under the Carrefour franchise in the Balkans via the creation of a joint company in the Balkans (Albania, Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia & Slovenia). This new company will develop hypermarkets and supermarkets, franchised under the Carrefour banners.