Le Blog Mulliez, an independent blog focusing on the Mulliez family’s retail empire, has unveiled that the first Auchan hypermarket is about to open its doors in the Middle East, in Dubai’s Dragon Mart shopping centre.

The store has a sales area of 93,650 sq ft. It will be the first outlet opened under the HyperCorp joint venture with Nakheel property group, which was signed in July last year.

French grocer Auchan’s interest in HyperCorp has been limited to just 10% of the capital. The company plans to open 15 hypermarkets and 40 supermarkets between now and 2018 in the Persian Gulf.