Rewe Group in Russia has announced that 20 new supermarkets will be added to the existing store base, with its organic expansion focusing on central Russia, following a sales growth of 35% in EUR during 2008. "Despite the outstanding challenges due to the current economic situation, the business performance on the Russian market has been very successful. In 2004, we launched our supermarket concept in Russia; since then, we have achieved annual growth rates, in EUR, of between 30% and 40%", said Frank Hensel, CEO of Rewe International. The expansion of the supermarket store base primarily takes place in central Russia with Moscow and the surroundings of the Russian capital being on focus of the activities. New outlets will be also opened in the Central Blackearth Region (Voronezh, Lipezk, Belgorod, Kursk), in the Nizhny Novgorod region (Nizhny Novogorod, Dzerzhinsk, Arsamas), in the Vladimir region and in Bryansk.