Carrefour will be opening two new stores in Romania. The French retailer entered the supermarket segment in the country by acquiring the 21-store Artima chain last year for €55 million. By the end of this year, 20 Artima stores will be re-branded as Carrefour Express. Carrefour has allocated €6.3 million for the re-branding.

Over the first nine months of 2008, the French retailer Carrefour generated sales of €891 million in Romania. The results represent a 41.5% increase in comparison with the same period in 2007, despite the negative impact of recent exchange rate fluctuations. Conceptually, the group plans to develop and to adapt to the Romanian market, encouraging Romanian suppliers/producers to develop beneficial partnerships. Over 90% of our Carrefour's suppliers in the country are Romanian companies.

The French group is the leader in the Romanian hypermarket segment, operating 18 hypermarkets, of which nine have opened in the last nine months. Last year, the company posted a turnover of €866m, up 42.2% in comparison with 2006. In 2008, Carrefour expects to report sales of over €1 billion.  From January to September 2008, the entire Carrefour group recorded sales revenues of €71.8 billion, up 7% in comparison with the corresponding period in 2007.

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