Shopping centres booming - Brief Article

Eurofood, Feb 3, 2000

Last year saw the opening of 98 new shopping centres across the European Union, as retail consortia and consumers latch onto the convenience of the one-stop shop. Nearly a quarter of these were in Germany, where 24 new centres welcomed their first customers. Spain was close behind with 22, followed by Italy with 15. A glance at the chart to the right shows that it is mainly in the countries of southern Europe that shopping centres are catching up. International companies find it relatively uncomplicated to invest in these often less tightly regulated countries, which has prompted the rapid expansion in recent years.

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