June 14 (SeeNews) - Swedish furniture retailer IKEA has invested 10 million euro ($11.2 million) in the construction of public infrastructure around its store in Serbia's capital, to be opened on August 10, the Belgrade city government said.
The investment is much bigger than the fee which the company had to pay to Belgrade for the construction of the store, Belgrade city manager Goran Vesic said in a statement on Tuesday.
The investor has built a 2 km-long access road to the store, a bridge on Zavojnicka river and a water transport network with a length of 5 km, Vesic said.
"IKEA has invested in Belgrade and I am sure that the company will soon see for itself that it has taken the right decision to build a store in our city," Vesic said.
The company has already hired 246 employees and intends to have a 406-strong workforce when the store in Serbia is opened, the CEO of IKEA for South East Europe (SEE), Stefan Vanoverbeke, said in an interview for Serbian daily Blic published on Sunday.
Last month, IKEA development director for SEE, Vladislav Lalic, said the company was also looking for a land plot on the left bank of the Sava river, in the northwestern part of the Serbian capital.
IKEA's long-term plans include the opening of a store in Nis but this depends on the development of the Serbian market and the country's economy in general, Lalic said at the time.