Russia wants to promote further consolidation of the food retail sector, aiming for the top five players to control between 30 and 50 percent of the market by 2020 against 11 percent now, a document showed on Thursday.
‘Consolidation allows (the industry) to realise the effects of scale in purchases (and) logistics, securing financial resources, which are crucial,’ the ministry said in a strategy document for the sector through 2020 published on its Web site.
The highly fragmented sector is recovering from Russia’s worst economic crisis in 15 years, boosted by rising prices for oil, a key export, and easing unemployment.
The two biggest Russian food retailers, X5 and Magnit, both recently unveiled store rollout plans and record investments to keep pace with recovering demand and a growing middle class.
Source : London South East
