IKEA to open its first store in Croatia in 2011

Swedish furniture retailer IKEA plans to open its first Croatian store in Zagreb's eastern suburb of Rugvica in 2011, in an investment worth EUR 300 million, IKEA's regional director for Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia, Dragan Skalusevic, announced at a press conference on Tuesday.

Measuring 260,000 square metres in area and offering 6,000 parking spaces, it will be one of the largest shopping centres in the country. The shopping centre will boast over 250 shops selling various brand products, including household appliances, electronic equipment, sporting equipment, books and music, as well as a hypermarket, restaurants and cafes. The IKEA store itself will measure some 30,000 square metres and will offer some 10,000 products.

The opening of the shopping centre is expected to provide a boost to the local economy through creation of new jobs. Skalusevic said that IKEA was planning further expansion in Croatia and that negotiations were under way with the authorities of the southern coastal city of Split to open a shopping centre there as well. He added that the company was also planning to enter the markets of Serbia and Slovenia.

Skalusevic said that they were planning long-term cooperation with domestic furniture makers, stressing that IKEA had already been cooperating for years with the TVIN company of Virovitica. IKEA today has 253 stores in 24 countries, employing 127,800 people in all. This year it is expected to generate a turnover of EUR 21.2 billion.