Hold or fold

Delayed, frozen, abandoned. No matter which words you choose to describe the retail projects hit by the crisis there are no doubts that after a few years of constant growth, the retail market in the region has ground to a halt. But is this really such a bad thing? Mladen Petrov And it was all looking so promising. In 2008, Romania and Bulgaria ranked first in Europe in terms of the amount of new retail space being delivered to the market, respectively enjoying a record 63 pct and 76 pct increase in retail space stock. Making the most of their fifteen minutes of fame after joining the EU in 2007, the two countries could not have been any happier: investors had arrived and they wanted to build everything – everywhere. This is how the Bulgarian town of Kazanlak, with a population of 80,000, ended up with two shopping centre projects. Across the Danube river, in Roman