The Inter Ikea Center Group (IICG) plans to open its first shopping center in North China in Beijing on December 19. Located near the South Fifth Ring Road, in the Xihongmen area, the center will cover 210,000 square meters of space and offer more than 400 retail brands. The group has invested more than CNY10 billion on three projects in Beijing, Wuhan, capital of Hubei province, and Wuxi, a second-tier city in Jiangsu province. About CNY5.5 billion was invested in the Beijing site, which the company claims is the largest in the country in terms of shopping area given purely to commercial and retail purposes. The country’s first Inter Ikea center opened in June in Wuxi, and received 250,000 people in the first three days. The shopping center in Wuhan is expected to start operation next April. Established in 2001, IICG has built 59 facilities in 19 countries and has 41 centers in the pipeline. The shopping centers are not designed to sell luxury products to small groups of people, but rather to have wider, mass appeal for average consumers and families. Large shopping centers, where people can shop, dine and entertain, have emerged across the country in recent years, gradually replacing traditional department stores, the China Daily reports. There were 3,450 shopping centers by the end of 2013 in China, opening at a rate of about 400 each year, according to the Mall China Information Center, a non-profit retail property organization based in Beijing.