Belgian supermarket Colruyt plans 70-store expansion

Brussels Belgian retailer Colruyt said it sees a potential to open 70 more of its Colruyt supermarkets in coming years, its chairman told a Belgian newspaper.

Jef Colruyt said in an interview with Belgian business daily L'Echo that the group planned to open 17 shops in Belgium this year -- five Colruyt supermarkets, eight OKay corner stores and three Dreamland toy shops.

"In the long run, we have a list of 70 possible locations for Colruyt [supermarkets]," Jef Colruyt told the newspaper. "If we could open 40 to 50 at four to five per year that would be good."

He added that the group believed it could increase its number of OKay corner stores to 170 from 65 now and could add about 80 more shops to its network of 260 Spar stores.

In France, Colruyt planned to open 10 new stores per year, the group's chairman said.

"As for other countries, the Netherlands is on ice, but we will study the possibilities in Eastern Europe. But one should not expect anything in the next two years," he said.

By the end of December 2009, the Belgian retail business consisted of 214 Colruyt, 63 OKay and six Bio-Planet stores for food and of 38 non-food stores of the DreamLand Group. The activities in France comprised 48 owned stores.