More foreign businesses invest in Kyiv's shopping malls to take advantage of the market's low supply and booming demand.

The latest market entrant is London based Meyer Bergman European Retail Partners, an asset managing company that announced in early May it acquired, for an undisclosed price, the Shopping center Aladdin, filled with European and Ukrainian stores in a Kyiv neighborhood with intense apartment construction and rising real estate prices.

"We hope this center will continue to improve, given its strong tenant base and prime location," said Zsolt Kohalmi, a major partner at Meyer Bergman. "In our opinion, the Ukrainian property retail market will continue to develop dynamically, and we look forward to increasing our exposure to this market going forward."

Though the majority of Ukraine's shopping centers are hosted by Ukrainian developers, more foreign retailers, commercial developers and investment companies have been investing in shopping center developments, said Vadim Livshyts, the managing partner at First Realty Brokerage.

It's usual that shopping centers have as their investors both Ukrainian developers and foreign investment funds.

Typically, the building contractors for shopping centers are Ukrainian, Turkish or Polish firms, while architectural design is handled by English, Israeli and German companies, he said.

In Kyiv, 36 shopping malls have been created totaling 700,000 m2, which will inevitably develop, according to Socmart, a Kyivbased real estate analysis firm monitoring investment in commercial buildings.

According to DTZ estimations, Kyiv will be on the very low side of real estate in Ukraine retail space supply for 1000 citizens compared to other Ukrainian cities till the end of 2010.

To provide demand, construction of about 130 000 m2 of additional retail space is planned for 2008, while about 300 000 m2 are planned for 2009, Stelmakh said.