The Republic of Korea’s leading retailer the Lotte Shopping Company, on July 22 announced plans to set up its first supermarket in Vietnam in 2013.

Lotte has signed a contract with the Coralis SA Company, worth 55.7 million USD, to buy a licence to build a trade centre in Hanoi .

The supermarket, which will be housed in a 65-storey building, is estimated to cost 350 billion won (roughly 280 million USD).

This will be the group’s fourth overseas supermarket, after one in Russia and two in China .

According to the Lotte representative, Park Geum-soo, the group will speed up its penetration into emerging markets like Vietnam , Russia and India./.