A time of humility, a time of truth

Can the future of the entire cee retail market be calculated from the size of Santa’s sack of presents? The industry clearly faces a difficult year ahead of it, but making accurate forecasts is a dangerous businessEwa Andrzejewska In the opinion of Renata Kusznierska, DTZ’s agency director for Central Europe: “The first three months of 2009 will be the most significant for the retail sector, as the health of retail space is being evaluated. When holiday period sales are summarized, any slowdown will become evident.” But she adds, with hindsight, that 2008 was a good one as regards the number of delivered projects, although some have been postponed until later this year. A huge number of champagne corks were popped at opening ceremonies in 2008 as 800,000 sqm of new space was delivered, an amount similar to 2007; however, in that year analysts had been predicting that as much as 1.3 mln s