Santiago, Nov 5 - Diversified Chilean retailer Cencosud, one of Latin America's largest retailers, said on Wednesday it expected consumer demand to lag slightly next year.
"We expect to see consumer demand lag a little in 2009," Laurence Golborne, Cencosud's chief executive, told Reuters on the sidelines of a seminar in the Chilean capital.
Golborne said Cencosud's sales continued to outpace last year's, as it expands across South America, but that consumer demand was less dynamic.
Cencosud last month suspended the placement of a bond issue worth up to $455 million due to market turbulence after earlier announcing it would delay investing $300 million in projects planned through 2011 given uncertainty generated by the global financial crisis.
The Santiago-based company runs supermarkets, department stores and home improvement stores, and has operations in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Chile and Peru.