The relaxed attitude of the local manager of AFI Europe, Reuven Havar, when he talks about AFI Palace Cotroceni Mega Mall, a project that the developer is to open in Bucharest this month, may seem surprising. In a time of economic decline and shrinking consumer spending, when all retailers in malls are seeing lower sales than in 2008 and after the first closures of shopping centres, Havar is confident about the results of the mall whose development he supervised.

"Do you know how I can tell? 50% of the tenants signed their leases after the start of the crisis and did it for high rents (an average monthly rent of approximately 30 euros per square metre, according to information on the market i.e.). This is a good sign to us."

Reuven Havar's laid-back attitude may seem even stranger considering that Cotroceni Mega Mall is located in the area with the highest shopping centre density in the country. Militari had attracted retail investments since before 2000, as Metro opened its second local cash & carry store here in 1997. Later on, the exit to the A1 Highway turned into a shopping hub, with the opening of the first hypermarket in Romania, Carrefour, followed by the opening of Mobexpert and Bricostore. Then came the Orhideea centre, the second mall in Bucharest developed by Anchor Group - Plaza Romania, several hypermarkets and DIY, home appliances and furniture stores, with two more retail parks opened close to the exit to the highway in recent years.

"The most crowded cities in terms of number of square metres of retail space compared with the population are Suceava and Cluj, but the Militari area will surely be the most crowded one after the opening of the Cotroceni Mega Mall," says Georgiana Andrei, consultant with the retail department of realtor Colliers International.

As proof, let us look at just one sign of the fierce competition in the area: after the opening of the mall developed by AFI, which will be the biggest in the country, the total retail space will go up to approximately 362,000 square metres, that is about 1,000 square metres per 1,000 people, considering the population of the 6th sector, which is almost 363,000 people. The western area of Bucharest would therefore be the most densely populated in Europe in terms of shopping centres, considering that in Norway, which is the leader in this regard, the average is half of this figure.