Subway, the world’s largest franchise network of fast food restaurants, expects to be running 1,000 outlets in Russia by 2015. Subway’s general franchisee in Russia Subway Russia LLC is planning to extend its restaurant network to 160 units by the end of this year.

The news was announced by Subway Russia LLC Vice President for Business Development Gennady Kochetkov at the 2nd ShopAndMall.Ru conference on retail franchising.

‘Fast food enterprises, especially the ones that are franchise-based, are the kind of business whose sales volumes tend to be only slightly affected by economic downfalls,’ he said.

According to the data available as of October 31, 2010, Subway currently operates 130 restaurants in Russia, including 60 café in Moscow and Moscow Region. Twenty-seven more restaurants are about to open. This year, the company managed to reduce the average pre-launch period from seventy-six to sixty days.

About a half of all the new franchises was bought by the already operating franchise chains in 2010. The network developed most rapidly in Moscow Region, Yekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk, and Krasnodar.