This year's star cities will be Bucharest and Suceava, with 3 launches of new shopping centres each, while Galati, Buzau, Piatra-Neamt or Focsani will witness the opening of the first developments of this type.

Over 20 malls will be opened this year, so that the nationwide inventory of shopping centres will double again, after in 2007 the 9 opened centres took the stock of malls to 18.

The 20 malls will have an overall lettable area of above 800,000 square metres, with total investments developers have announced amounting to some 1.3bn euros.

Three new shopping centres will be opened in Bucharest, putting an end to the last two years' "drought" as since the opening of City Mall in 2005 no other large shopping centres has been delivered in Bucharest.

Baneasa Shopping City, Sun Plaza and Liberty Center will practically double the inventory of spaces in Bucharest's shopping centres, due to exceed 300,000 square metres by yearend in case the three projects are delivered in due time.

There are at least five shopping centres scheduled for opening in Bucharest in the following years (Cotroceni Park, Dambovita Center, Parklake Plaza, Galleria Bucharest or the mall part of Sema Parc project), all of them large developments, resulting in tight competition.

This year, Suceava will see as many shopping centres being opened as Bucharest. The city does not have any such mall at present. Thus, the 4th project of businessman Iulian Dascalu's portfolio will be finalised this year in northern Moldavia and Shopping City and Galleria will be opened. The three shopping centres will put onto Suceava's market some shopping centres with an area of over 100,000 square metres, with cumulated investments revolving around 180m euros.

Also in Moldavia, but in Iasi, we may witness the first market "saturation" as the 4th shopping centre of the city, ERA S