OREANDA-NEWS. On 28 May 2008 was announced, that at the construction site of the 20th in Ukraine METRO Cash & Carry wholesale store in Ivano-Frankivsk Mr. Anushkevychus, Ivano-Frankivsk Mayor, Mr. Shkvarelyuk, Ivano-Frankivsk Deputy Governor and Axel Hluchy,  Managing Director of METRO Cash & Carry joined the solemn ceremony devoted to the end of major construction works of the new trade center.

The new METRO Cash & Carry wholesale center located at the Vovchynetska street is planned to open in mid July. Total investment into the construction and equipment of the store as well as into the purchasing of the land plot amounts to UAH 160 Mio.  The store is constructed by Skorpion-RP as the general contractor together with 4 more local construction and design companies.

The new store creates more than 300 new jobs for local citizens. About 80% of employees are already hired and currently undergo practical training at already operating METRO Cash & Carry stores in Lviv and Vinnitsa.

METRO Cash & Carry sources over 90% of its 28 000 food and nonfood products assortment from over 1 200 Ukrainian producers, distributors and importers. The company already cooperates with several suppliers from Ivano-Frankivsk region aiming to intensify the relations by the time of the store opening.

The store located on the 3.6 hectares land plot spans nearly 12.000 sq. m., of which about 7.500 sq. m. is the trade area. The new METRO Cash & Carry wholesale trade center will offer its professional customers 267 parking slots.

“Preparing to open in Ivano-Frankivsk we intend to bring our wholesale concept closer to our customers in the region who currently have to travel for purchasing to our store in Lviv. The opening of our store will mark an important milestone as this is our 20th store in Ukraine”, − said Axel Hluchy.

Within 5 years of operations in Ukraine METRO Cash & Carry opened 19 wholesale stores: three in Kyiv, two in Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk and Odessa, one in Kharkiv, Lviv, Luhansk, Kryvyi Rih, Poltava, Vinnytsa, Zaporizhya, Chernivtsi, Mykolaiv and Rivne. Having invested into the Ukrainian economy Ђ 360 Mio METRO Cash & Carry created over 6 100 new jobs for Ukrainians. In 2007 METRO Cash & Carry Ukraine achieved sales of EUR 818 Mio.