With the hope to acquire, develop and operate shopping malls in India, US-based real estate investment trust Vornado Realty Trust has made the announcement to enter in a Joint Venture (JV) with the Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries. To take this JV to the peak of success, both the partners will invest $250 million which comes to nearly Rs 1,000 crore each.

Vornado informed, “The shopping centers, spread over 5, 00,000 to 10 lakh square feet or more, will be anchored by a hypermarket owned and operated by Reliance.”

This JV also will give a boost up to the plans of expansion for RIL’s retail venture Reliance Retail. It operates 700 multiple-format stores across 60 cities, taking 3.5 million sqft under its grid.

In the next five years, the domestic retail market, which currently stands at $511 billion is expected to grow to $833 billion. On the other hand, retail consultancy AT Kearney expect for the organized retail to grow by 40% every year to $ 107 billion by 2013.