With business forecast at 200-300 million euros a year, the Cotroceni Park project could attract a significant part of the shoppers who are now going to Plaza, Militari Shopping or even Liberty Center as of October 29.

The hypermarkets in the central and western area of the Capital, such as Carrefour Orhideea and Cora Lujerului, could see their sales go down as a result of the opening of the Cotroceni Park mall, which will also include a Real hypermarket open twenty four hours a day.

"Under the current market circumstances, with a dwindling purchasing power and obvious reluctance on the part of the people to maintain consumer spending at the previous years' level, any opening of a new shopping centre means first of all a distribution of the shopping budget among more players," says Bogdan Dancau, managing director of Atrium European Real Estate, the owner of the Militari Shopping project in Bucharest.

Among the tenants renting space in both Militari Shopping and Cotroceni Park are C&A and New Yorker apparel retailers, or the Deichmann and Humanic footwear stores, but the two projects are at least five kilometres apart.

The main competitor for Cotroceni Park, however, will be Plaza Romania, located about one kilometre away on the Timisoara Boulevard in western Bucharest.

"It is hard to estimate the impact of the opening of Cotroceni Park. After five years in business we may say that Plaza Romania is a mature shopping centre, which has already taken its position on the market. The store mix is different, and the latest modifications will do nothing but consolidate this position," says Radu Tanasescu, chief operating officer of Anchor Grup, the owner of the Plaza Romania and Bucuresti Mall shopping centres.

Plaza opened in 2004 and was expanded this year; the store assortment is quite different from Cotroceni Park's, so that loyal cust