MCC Ukraine: New METRO Cash & Carry Store in Makiyivka Replaced the Mining Waste Bank

Makyiyvka/Ukraine - October 21, 2008 – Today METRO Cash & Carry Ukraine opened its 21th store on Terykonna Street in Makiyivka. By demolishing a mining waste bank, the first ecological project in Ukraine was completed. With this project the total investment of METRO Cash & Carry Ukraine into the region exceeds UAH 410 Mio (about € 58 Mio) and creats around 1.000 jobs in three wholesale stores.

The 6.3 ha land plot which only 6 months ago located a 30 meters high mining waste bank now offers over 28.000 food and nonfood articles at the new METRO Cash & Carry store of 14.000 square meters.

GERTZ Group of Companies was the general constructor of the store. With this project METRO Cash & Carry brought UAH 190 Mio (about € 27 Mio) of direct investment into the region creating over 300 new jobs. This is the third METRO Cash & Carry store in the Donetsk region; two of them operate in Donetsk city.

Sourcing over 90% of its food and non-food products from about 1.400 Ukrainian producers, distributors and importers METRO Cash & Carry already cooperates with 27 local companies.

“Opening our third store in the Donetsk region we on one hand helped to resolve one of the vital ecological problems and on the other hand we supported the local economy bringing direct foreign investment, new jobs and more benefits to our professional customers“, said Axel Hluchy, Managing Director of METRO Cash & Carry Ukraine.

Mr. Maltsev, Makiyivka Mayor, Mr. Blyznyuk, Head of the Donetsk Region Administration and Axel Hluchy, Managing Director of METRO Cash & Carry Ukraine cut the symbolic ribbon opening the new store.

Before the opening ceremony the owners of local restaurants, hotels, bars, catering companies and traders visited the HoReCa and Traders Conference. The participants learnt about the METRO wholesale concept, loyalty programs and special services developed exclusively for HoReCa customers and traders. For them the company organized a product and wine tasting, in particular presenting the products sold under its own brands ”Aro“ and “HoReCa Select“.

Within 5 years of operations in Ukraine METRO Cash & Carry opened 21 wholesale stores: three in Kyiv, two in Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk and Odesa, one in Kharkiv, Lviv, Luhansk, Kryvyi Rih, Poltava, Vinnytsa, Zaporizhya, Chernivtsi, Mykolaiv, Rivne, Ivano-Frankivsk and Makiyivka. Having invested into the Ukrainian economy € 380 Mio METRO Cash & Carry created close to 7.000 new jobs for Ukrainians.

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METRO Cash & Carry is a sales division of the METRO Group, one of the most important international retailing and trading companies. In 2007, the group reached sales of € 64.3 billion. The company has a headcount of more than 280,000 employees and operates about 2,500 outlets in 31 countries. The operating business is performed by the sales brands which operate independently in the market: Metro/Makro Cash & Carry, Real hypermarkets, Media Markt and Saturn – market leader in consumer electronics centers in Europe, and Galeria Kaufhof department stores. More information at: www.metrogroup.de.