WEF meet: IKEA to open store in Bengaluru in June

Swedish furniture retailer IKEA would open its flagship store here in June. CEO of Ingka Group, of which IKEA is a part, Jester Brodin on Wednesday met Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai at the World Economic Forum Meet in Davos, Switzerland, and held discussions in the backdrop of the store-opening.

The IKEA store (furniture) is set to be inaugurated at Nagasandra, here, in June and Brodin invited Bommai to the event, the Chief Minister’s office said in a statement. The India head office of IKEA is in Bengaluru and issues related to extensive use of bamboo and other locally available raw materials in making of furniture came up for discussion during the meeting, it said.

Industries Minister Murugesh Nirani, IT, BT Minister C N Ashwath Narayan, Additional Chief Secretary in the Department of Industries E V Ramana Reddy, Chief Minister’s Principal Secretary N Manjunath and Commissioner in the Department of Industries Gunjan Krishna were present. The company had earlier said the store in Bengaluru would be IKEA’s third in the country after Mumbai and Hyderabad.

The Bengaluru store is spread over five lakh sqft, and would employ 800-1000 direct workers and another 1,500 indirectly providing services such as assembly and delivery, it had said, adding that the IKEA-Bengaluru store is expected to attract more than 70 lakh visitors a year. Also, Bommai suggested Axis Bank to take up upgradation of some of the engineering colleges and universities in the State under its corporate social responsibility(CSR) programmes. Also, Bommai suggested Axis Bank to take up upgradation of some of the engineering colleges and universities in the State under its corporate social responsibility(CSR) programmes.