Rimantas Perveneckas, Apranga CEO, believes that the supply of youth clothes in Lithuania will become more Western-like after the entry of H&M into the domestic market.
“Its [H&M’s] negotiations in Lithuania, on opening the stores – four at once in the fall of 2013, two in Vilnius, one in Kaunas and one in Klaipėda - are coming to an end,” he said at a meeting with the NASDAQ OMX Vilnius Stock Exchange investors in Vilnius on Tuesday.
Not until Lukashenko is gone
As for Apranga's own expansion plans, Perveneckas said the company had not risked entering Belarus market and did not plan to do that under the current regime in the neighboring country.
“The market is very interesting, and we were approached with certain proposals. We even bought goods for the opening of certain stores. But the more you study, the more you go there, the less you want to invest there. I think that a solid company, in particular a trading company, with advertising, with window-cases, actually cannot work in that market under the current regime,” Rimantas Perveneckas said at the NASDAQ OMX Vilnius Stock Exchange investors meeting.
According to him, Apranga remained interested in Belorussian market, and buyers from that country would often come to Lithuania to shop in the stores of the company, in particular in high-end stores.
“Belarus’ market is very interesting for us. Why don't we want to go elsewhere? It is very difficult to manage retail trade at big distances. And first of all, you have to cover the neighbouring markets...,” Perveneckas said.
Apranga has been studying possibilities to enter Belarus’ market since 2007 but has not yet launched operations in that country.
The European Union accuses Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko of flouting human rights.
