The first store in Romania of Swedish group Ikea - big furnoiture producer and distributor - will open in Baneasa area /northern Bucharest/, in the spring of 2007. "This will be the first Ikea store in the Balkans," confirms Hendrik Notmeijer, manager of Ikea Trading Area Balkan, a company based in Bucharest. The store will stretch on 24,000 sqm and will require an investment of 15 million euros, says Michael Lloyd, head of TriNation Management &Development BV, the company that developed the biggest real estate project in Romania, Baneasa Investment. Lloyd added the store will be opened in franchise system and the investor is a foreign firm. According to some sources, the owner of the future store is a UK company.

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