Slovenia's Mercator Chain To Open in Macedonia

The company plans to first open a large shopping mall in Skopje, stretching over 50,000 square meters of land near the city centre, and later expand to other Macedonian towns.

Mercator has been present in Macedonia since 2005, but due to delays it has not yet launched its country investment plan.

“We have had some administrative problems that are now behind us,” the head of Mercator Macedonia, Jordan Minov, recently told local media. “There are several months of intensive work to be done in order to acquire a building permit and then we can start building,” he said.

In its business strategy, by 2012 Merkator plans to grab some five percent of Macedonia’s retail market.

Mercator Group is one of the largest retailers in Southeastern Europe. The company currently employs more than 21,000 people.

Mercator recently opened its first stores in Albania to join its already operational chains of stores in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia and Bulgaria.