Retail News Update

Plaza Centres, a subsidiary of Elbit Medical Imaging, an Israeli company, announces to invest a large sum of Rs 5,000 crore to set up 50 shopping malls in India. The project will take place over the next five to seven years.

Organized retail in India accounted for 4.6% of the $270 billion retail market in India in 2006. The sector is growing at around 40% a year, says the data showcased by the India Retail Report 2007.

The Netherlands-listed Plaza has already embarked upon its journey to carve out a significant niche in Indian retail sector. The company is developing two malls in Pune and one each in Chennai, Bangalore, Thiruvananthapuram, and Kochi. Of these, the first is scheduled to come up in Pune’s Koregaon Park.

Developers are now becoming aware of the need to differentiate the malls according to location and targeted customers. They will be the new generation malls to come over a period of six to eight months.

Plaza Center set up its first mall in Eastern Europe and has 42 malls across nine European countries.

In 2006, the company announced a turnover of €400 million and a net profit of €140 million at the same year-end.

Abraham Goren, executive vice chairman of Elbit Imaging Ltd, Plaza’s parent company has all praises for Indian retail sector and finds it more developed in terms of infrastructure and the shelling out money here is more difficult.

The company is primarily focusing the IT growth which is contributing to India’s growth in a big way.

Developers are being bullish to acquire land in tier – II cities as the land prices here are lower. Also, it renders a chance to them to make a big killing by retailing their products where they have paid less for the space.