Companies in the apparel and footwear industry believe they will compete on a market whose value will revert somewhere close to the level of 2006. High rents for shops and the consumer spending slowdown, as a result of the crisis, are the main problems those in the field are facing, especially the brands that do not have adequate financial backing. The market had been growing by at least 15% every year since 2006, reaching two billion euros last year. Now, however, such growth has become impossible to attain.

”Because of the current economic situation I do not think we will be able to talk about aggressive expansion any longer,” says Adrian Cazu, manager of the footwear and leather accessories store chain Benvenuti, who is contemplating a halt of the development plan and a 20% personnel cutback. ”There will be relocations of stores, changes in the tenant mix in shopping centres, new stores of international retailers that have not been present or have been poorly represented thus far will probably open, but the horizontal development boom in Romania is coming to an end,” Cazu believes. His company, which has 300 employees, manages 34 stores, 31 of which are Benvenuti-branded, two are Enzo Bertini and one is Oxus-branded.

The expansion map has been set aside, with just a few markings on it: the only stores that will open this year will be those for which a contract has already been signed with mall developers and as such cannot be cancelled. ”What I can say for certain is that we will open our eighth store in Buzau next month,” says Mihai Sindrilaru, chief executive of New Yorker Romania apparel chain. ”We are ready to launch two or three more by the end of the year, but we do not know what the developers are doing, if the projects announced will be completed. The projects were postponed for next year – maybe until the next instalment of the financing, and some were dropped.” Sindrilaru, whose expansion plan in 2007 when the retailer entered Romania was remarkably aggressive – 50 stores by 2012, believes that chains like New Yorker, which have arrived in the last two years, are willing to open but can no longer find adequate retail space.

Read more about fashion and real estate trends in the ”Piata Imobiliara: Iesirea din criza” (Real estate market: The exit from crisis) catalogue, published by BUSINESS Magazin, which comes out this month.