Cora hypermarket network, owned by Louis Delhaize group, has started work to expand the commercial gallery included in the store located in Lujerului area of Bucharest.

Several stores will be located in the newly created space, of around 3,300 square metres, according to Jerome Peyrard, Cora expansion manager for Central Europe. Cora representatives chose not to provide any details related to this project.

Louis Delhaize group, which also owns Profi discounter network, opened Cora Lujerului hypermarket in the autumn of 2005, two years after it launched its first store in Romania, Cora Pantelimon. The French retailer has invested 40m euros in Cora Lujerului, having a sales area of 14,000 square metres.

Despite Louis Delhaize's being among the first international retailers to have invested on the Romanian market, Cora is currently the smallest hypermarket network among the ones operating domestically.

The last Cora opening was registered in 2006, in Cluj, and no new location has been announced for this year. In exchange, 2009 will see the opening of a Cora hypermarket in Sun Plaza mall of Berceni district and a hypermarket may be opened in Constanta the same year, on the plot of land the company acquired as early as 2007.

In 2006, the three Cora hypermarkets generated sales worth 300m euros, up 70% year-on-year amid the opening of the store in Cluj-Napoca in the autumn of 2006. In the same interval, the company's net income doubled, from 2.4m euros in 2005 to 5.4m euros in 2006, according to Finance Ministry data.

Cora network's most important rivals are now Carrefour, Real and Auchan, which have announced fast expansion plans for the Romanian market for 2008.

Louis Delhaize ranks 4th in Romanian FMCG, after Metro, Rewe and Carrefour, according to data reported by companies for 2006. Louis Delhaize reached turnover worth 34