Carrefour to pursue Egypt growth as retail recovers
“There is probably no worse challenge than 2011 when the mall was looted,” Iyad Malas, chief executive officer of Majid Al Futtaim Holding LLC, said in an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “We decided to reinstate the asset, all the tenants came back, trading has come back, actually it’s better than pre-crisis level.”
The company, known by its acronym MAF, will open another mall, called Mall of Egypt, in the first quarter of 2016, Malas said. It will also start construction on a project near Cairo’s airport this year and expand its existing mall in the country. “Egypt continues to be a big investment market,” the CEO said.
Egypt’s economy has been stuck in its deepest slump for two decades since the 2011 revolt, as persistent turmoil deterred foreign investment and tourism. Oil-rich states Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have contributed billions of dollars to bolster the government of Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi.
MAF, which operates shopping malls, supermarkets or hotels in 14 countries, is seeking to maintain the pace of revenue generation of the past two decades, doubling sales every five years, Malas said. The decline in oil prices should help retail business in Egypt, a fuel importing country, he said.
Source: bloomberg.com
