Some of the largest supermarket chains have announced their arrival in Serbia, and the German Lidl can be expected to arrive first, State Secretary at the Ministry of Trade and Agriculture Vladimir Matovic has stated, recalling that over EUR 1 billion were invested in the trade sector in Serbia in 2011.
He said that Lidl have already registered the company in Serbia, that they are currently deciding which cities they will open stores in, adding that the construction of facilities is expected to begin soon.
“We expect other supermarket chains to show interest as well, because the Serbian market is completely open for foreign investments in the area of trade, and is legally harmonized with the European standards,” Matovic told Tanjug.
We will continue improving the market so as to attract new investments, he added.
According to him, the arrival of retail chains in Serbia will improve competitiveness, which will lead to more favorable prices and drop in trade margins.
Matovic named the example of the Belgian supermarket chain Delhaize, which purchased Delta Maxi for EUR 934 million in 2011, and raised the quality of services with new methodologies, thus assigning the same task to its competitors, which the consumers will benefit from.
Including Delhaize’s acquisition, investments in the trade sector in 2011 exceeded 1 EUR billion, Matovic underlined. He added that the second biggest investor was Mercator-S company with EUR 57 million of investments, followed by the German Metro with EUR 21 million, and domestic supermarket chains DIS with EUR 11 million, Univerexport with EUR 5 million and SOS markets with EUR 150,000.
According to the data of the Serbian Chamber of Commerce, Delhaize Serbia, Mercator-S and Idea have the largest market share in Serbia.
Source Emg
