Lotte Mart mulls moving headquarters to China

SEOUL (Yonhap) - Lotte Mart Co., South Korea's second-largest discount store chain, is considering moving its headquarters to China in an effort to focus more on its overseas business, its chief said Monday.
"We will accelerate our opening of stores abroad and are mulling moving our headquarters to China when overseas sales exceed domestic sales," said Noh Byung-yong, chief executive officer of Lotte Mart, in a meeting with company officials.
Lotte Mart has 107 overseas stores -- 82 in China, 23 in Indonesia and two in Vietnam, while it operates 92 outlets in the country.
Lotte Mart's overseas sales reached 2.6 trillion won (US$2.43 billion) last year, compared with domestic sales of 5.9 trillion won.
Lotte Mart expects that its overseas sales will outstrip domestic sales within four or five years, driven by its aggressive overseas business strategy.
Noh emphasized that Lotte Mart should focus on overseas business. "South Korea's domestic market is already saturated and regulations are tightening," he said. "Overseas business is the only way for us to become Asia's top retailer."
Lotte said that it will establish a unit in China early next year to deal with overseas management and business in China and other Asian countries.