Russia has more than 49.5 million sq ft (4.6 million sq m) of shopping centre space opening in the next 18 months, topping the ranking for the whole of Europe.

In the European Shopping Centres Report, published by Cushman & Wakefield, Russia is far ahead of Poland, which sits in second place with nearly 16.1 million sq ft (1.5 million sq m) of retail space, due to open by the end of 2008.

In third place is Spain with just over 12.9 million sq ft (1.2 million sq m) of space.

Cushman & Wakefield head of research in Russia Tim Gosling said: “Development has really taken off across the Russian regions this year, with quality developers such as BV Development and The Regions rolling out shopping centres to up the stakes in the major regional cities.

“The retailers will be more than happy to fill most of this space, because rapidly rising incomes are driving a consumer boom in regional cities to follow the one that kicked off in Moscow some years ago.”

Europe has 1.13 billion sq ft (105 million sq m) of gross leasable shopping centre space open for trade. Next year a further 122.7 million sq ft (11.4 million sq m) of space, excluding extensions, will open. This is an increase of 38 per cent on 2007’s figure of 89.3 million sq ft (8.3 million sq m).

Topics