Carrefour Romania reported a drop of 3.2% in like-for-like sales in the first quarter of the current year compared with same period of 2011, in comparable terms, reaching 277 million euro. Including expansion of the last year, sales increased by 6.8% at constant exchange rates. In Romania, the French retailer's operations include 25 hypermarkets, 52 supermarkets and five franchise.

In the region, which also includes Poland, Turkey, Romania, Greece and another six countries, the French retailer's sales fell by 2.7% to 6.18 billion euro, driven by poor sales in non food sector, but also because of worsening climate in Greece. Single market with positive development in comparative terms, in the first quarter of 2012 were Poland (+0.5%) and Belgium (+1.8%).

In the whole group, Carrefour reported a 0.9% increase in comparable terms in Q1, sales reaching a value of almost 22.5 billion euro. According to the report, the main engine of growth continued to be emerging markets, with Latin America leading regions than expected.