Bulgaria ranks 21st among 30 global emerging markets in the retail investment attractiveness survey of management consulting firm A.T. Kearney.

The study, which gauges markets by factors such as saturation, attractiveness and country risks, placed Bulgaria five spots lower than last year, trailing Turkey but still ahead of Romania and Croatia.

The global economic deterioration continues to take its toll on Bulgaria, hitting hardest at sectors heavily dependent on credit purchases, said Jan Van der Oord, who runs the company’s Bulgarian, Serbian and Hungarian operations.

He explained the Bulgarian market still offers a raft of modern retail format opportunities and is far from consolidation, which makes it very appealing to foreign retailers.

The food industry will be joined by fashion and other sectors in luring in foreign chains, Van der Oord predicted.

This year Bulgaria welcomed Carrefour, the world’s second largest retailer, and Germany’s Plus, Lidl and Penny are also prepping to set foot on the market. Slovenian Mercator is also expected to step in.

A.T. Kearney’s ranking of the most attractive retail market was again topped by India, followed by Russia and China. Slovenia leapfrogged 14 places to ninth, and Columbia, Salvador and Argentina were rooted at the bottom.