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Simeon Mitropolitski is a Canadian analyst, of Bulgarian origin, and a former syndicated columnist with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). He is the author of several hundred articles dealing with hot political and economic topics, both national and international.

He was part of the first group of Bulgarian intellectuals and students that began the opposition movement that finally put an end to the communist regime in this country in 1989, and in 1996-1997 participated in international observation teams during the elections in several Balkan countries - Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.

In 2002 Simeon and his family moved from Bulgaria to Canada where they live now in Montreal, province of Quebec. Simeon is a Master of Political Science from McGill University and a B.A. of Political Science and History.

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These days to invest in new retail commercial projects and especially in big shopping centers' construction and enlargement may become the top capital return strategy for the European investment funds. At least this was the main idea pitched at the 7th edition of Mapic, the most prestigious gathering in Europe in the field of the commercial real estate affairs.

These days the investment in shopping centers offers higher capital returns even in comparison with the office space market, says Michel Clair, president of Klepierre, a subsidiary of the financial group BNP-Paribas*. After opening the huge shopping center "Val d'Europe" at Eurodisney near Paris, Klepierre has opened this year 3 new centers in 3 other French towns.

But there is a "but" that troubles the nights of the European investors. In France, for example, and this may be seen also in Germany, Belgium and Netherlands, in the 80s the construction of shopping centers was much bigger than it is in our days. Statistic numbers show that the shopping centers completed in France 2 decades ago were 25-30 annually, now there are 3-5 new centers annually. Partly this can be explained by the fact that the concentration of such centers is already big enough for newcomers and investors have to think twice before taking a step forward. Partly this is because the "old" centers go through a process of enlargement.

Thus the retail investment remains relatively profitable but only relatively, compared to the actual situation on the office market where we can see a net outflow of demand following the global economic slowdown in the recent months. In order to transform this relative market advantage in the field of retail in absolute profit numbers the European investment funds turn their eyes toward the Southern and Eastern Europe.

Some say these two regions are the new Eldorado for the European investors. The Southern Europe has double advantage. On one hand, here we have the living standard high enough and comparable to that in France and the other northern European states. On the other hand, the shopping centers are fewer here than in Northern Europe, so we have many prospects for new projects. But, here we have another "but" - the new projects for Spain are so numerous (172) that no one can predict which ones will be profitable at the end.

On the other hand, for the same reason Italy is considered to be very tough market for newcomers just because too many projects have been accomplished in the last couple of years.

Some countries in Central and Eastern Europe could become very attractive for the European investors given the small number of large modern retail spaces and quickly increasing living standards. In Poland, for example, in different phases of accomplishment are 132 projects, half of them with French investors. New projects are under way in Hungary and Czech Republic. "The investments are much cheaper there (in Central than in Western Europe) but the average expenses by the (local) consumers are very similar", says Serge Brunschwig, the president of Pinault-Printemps-Redoute*.

* - Newspaper "Le Monde", 16th November 2001, "Les centers commerciaux europeens se reinventent pour eviter la crise".

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