German supermarket chain Metro Group has announced it will open its first Egyptian store today, under the Makro name, and may consider opening up to 20 more in the country. The new store, in Cairo, is around 10,000 square feet in size, and will stock 20,000 products, 90 per cent of which will be Egyptian.
"Agriculture will benefit a lot from this project because it will improve ways of displaying agricultural goods," said Egyptian Trade Minister Rachid Mohamed Rachid, who openly welcomed the move. "More importantly, it will shorten (supply) chain links so the producer will get a better price and the consumer will get a price." Egypt hopes the opening of the new store will encourage more efficient internal trade into the country, and cut consumer prices. The government is setting up three logistics facilities in Luxor, Beheira and Daqahliya in a bid to spur growth. Metro has announced it sees the move into Egypt as important towards growth in the Middle East and North Africa. (30 Jun) © 2010 - ESM: European Supermarket Magazine
