Planet Retail 8 Jan 2008

A1 Group, a subsidiary company of the Alfa Group (which owns X5 Retail Group), and Finance Corporation IFC are is going to launch a supermarket store network in Belarus. As the A1 Group project manager Alexander Vinogradov has stated, the company plans to launch 128 soft discount supermarkets by 2010, with an investment of USD83 million. The stores will have an average sales area of 500 square metres and will be located in the cities of Minsk, Brest, Gomel and Vitebsk.

The name of the banner has not been released yet. However, X5 Retail Group has stated that Belarus is not a strategic market for the retailer: "We don't have either a franchising agreement or an option with the company," according to Andrei Gusev, X5's director of M&A.

Copyright www.planetretail.net