Better to be friends than enemies

The ‘good times’, if indeed that’s what they were for Romania, are a distant memory now. At the Eurobuild CEE conference on the Romanian retail market, the hangover the sector is now suffering from was clearly apparent. There were, however, some rays of light for those taking a longer term view One of the panellists commented that harassment of landlords by tenants now seemed to be a national sport, and it rang true. Not every retailer is in trouble, but from those who are trying to get rental reductions and other concessions from their landlords, you could easily form the impression that they are. When retailers hear that rents in one shopping centre are being reduced by 25 pct, they want rents reduced in their centre by the same margin, if not more, without considering (or caring) that conditions vary from centre to centre. As one panellist said, there seems to be no respect at all in the market. Another said he felt the retail market had moved from one period of im