McDonald's plans to invest around $135 million in expanding and upgrading operations in Russia and open 45 more outlets in the country this year, the corporation's executive vice-president said Monday.

Jim Skinner, who is also chief operations officer, said Russia was a priority area for investment this year as part of its $1.2 billion development strategy for Europe, where the company currently has some 6,600 outlets and is to open another 250 this year.
He added that between 40 and 45 new fast food outlets would be opened in Russia each year through 2012.
McDonald's currently operates 245 outlets in Russia and has an estimated 70% share of Russia's fast food service restaurant market.

20 years of successful work in Russia

Twenty years ago, on January 31, 1990, some 5,000 people gathered in Moscow's Pushkinskaya Square, waiting for the opening of a McDonald's restaurant, the first to start working in the Soviet Union.
A total of 30,000 Soviet citizens tasted hamburgers and Coca-Cola in McDonald's in the first day of its work, setting a new record for the number of first day visits in the restaurant's history. The previous record was registered when the first McDonalds outlet opened in the Hungarian capital, Budapest, attracting 9,100 people in the first day. Soviet citizens were ready to stay in line for hours to taste a hamburger worth 1.5 rubles, and a Big Mac worth 3.75 rubles. An average salary then did not exceed 150 rubles in the Soviet Union, and a one-month bus ticket cost 3 rubles. The first McDonald's restaurant was capable of serving some 700-900 people simultaneously.
In 1993, Russia's second McDonald's outlet opened in the central Moscow pedestrian street, the Old Arbat. Another restaurant opened in Moscow's central Tverskaya Street in the same year. In 1996, a McDonald's outlet opened in Russia's second city of St. Petersburg.
As of now, some 218 McDonald's restaurants are open across Russia, serving a total of 600,000 people daily.
Earlier in January, Burger King, the U.S. chain of hamburger fast food restaurants, opened its first outlet in Russia's capital to compete with McDonald's.