The Slovenian retail chain for fast moving goods opened Thursday its first supermarket in Bulgaria's southern city of Stara Zagora.

The store covers an area of 3 000 square meters and was completed in less than 6 months with an investment amount estimated at EUR 3 M. It employs 60 people, who all underwent training in Slovenia, and offers 15 000 food items and other consumer goods.

Bulgaria is the sixth country where the company has stores and plans are for 6 new supermarkets to open by the end of 2010 with investments of EUR 40 M. Mercator's strategic plan is to have 3% of Bulgaria's retail market by the end of 2012.

The company's anti-crisis measures include changing the range or products and lowering retail prices. Mercator aims at offering local goods, which will be the case in Bulgaria as well – they will represent 90% of the products sold in stores in the country.

The Mercator Group is one of the largest commercial chains in Southeastern Europe; it is the leading commercial chain in Slovenia and it is rapidly becoming an established chain in the markets of Serbia, Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 2005, the company entered the Macedonian market.

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