The Dubai based Lals Group has confirmed plans to develop a second mall in the emirate under the Lamcy brand.
Present plans are to introduce it into the marketplace by late 2006, confirmed the group's founder and chairman, Lal Ganwani.
"The new development will be two to three times bigger than the original Lamcy Plaza we launched in 1997," he said.
The existing Lamcy Plaza has a total leasable area of 250,000 square feet.
"We have not yet finalised the location but we should be looking at a target date of end-2006 for its opening."
Another major initiative is to extend the group's footprint into Saudi Arabia, with an entry scheduled for next year.
"We have identified the partner there and we should be introducing three or four lines that we own Homes 'R' Us and Daiso among them," said Ganwani.
The group is gradually expanding its retail interests in some of the other Gulf markets.
"The furniture retail and furnishings concept we introduced last year through Homes 'R' Us has taken off well in the UAE. We believe the time is ripe to expand its prospects in some other Gulf markets.
"Retail and distribution have been our key strengths in all the years since the formation. We have no intention to diversify from the basic lines."
Another recent entry has been into the Indian market. But Ganwani dismisses the possibility of venturing into hypermarkets or any other large-scale retail operations there.
"Retailing in India is not that easy. What we intend to do there is go in with some of our franchises such as Mango and Nine West," the chairman added.
"We have also got consent from a few other leading brands to venture into the Indian market."But Africa is off the radar as far as the group is concerned.
"We did some business in the past. There have been issues of lack of transparency in some of those markets, and we felt it was better to exit."
"The group is expanding and our revenues are up. We are expecting reasonable growth this year and next," said Ganwani.
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