Reduced advertising budgets leaves advertisement sector in the doldrums

In the first six months of this year, spending on advertising exceeded last year's expenses by only 11%. Taking inflation into account, this effectively means that growth in this sector is stagnant. Reasons given by analysts include a widespread drop in domestic demand for products forcing companies to reduce their advertising budget. Consumers are trying to reduce their borrowing and so are now only purchasing essential goods and are choosing the cheapest ones. Star Media's Adam Lapinski says this year is going to continue to be hard for the advertising sector. (Gazeta Wyborcza, page 19) A.D. Carrefour to give shoppers more opportunities for hypermarket shopping French retail-group Carrefour is planning to have about 30 supermarkets in Poland by the end of 2001, up from its present number of 11. The new supermarkets will operate under the Champion name. The average size of the new supermarkets will be about 2,000 square meters. They will be located in towns with populations of between 50,000 and 90,000 and in large-scale housing-developments in the larger cities. The new supermarkets are to be built from scratch as there are not many supermarkets currently operating in Poland which could meet Carrefour's standards. However, this does not exclude the possibility of Carrefour taking over smaller supermarket chains in the future. (Puls Biznesu, page 4) A.D.