Brussels, 14/11/2001 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission has cleared a joint venture between Sweden's ICA Ahold and Denmark's Dansk Supermarked A/S (DSG), two retail companies. The joint venture will develop and operate the hard discount concept "Netto" and possibly the hypermarket concept "Bilka" in Sweden and Norway. ICA Ahold is active via in the procurement, wholesale and retail of daily consumer goods via supermarkets, hypermarkets and discount stores. Via its joint venture with Statoil AS it also operates 1406 service stations for the sale of fuel and consumer goods in Norway, Sweden and Denmark. DSG is a chain of food and general goods stores, including discount stores mainly in Denmark, but also in the UK and Germany. The Commission considered that the joint venture would neither strengthen not create a dominant position and therefore decided to authorise the venture.