\nSouth Korean retail giant Lotte Group has signed a deal to sell its China theme park project to a local company in the Chinese northeastern city of Shenyang, a group official said Thursday.<\/p>\n
The group official told Yonhap News Agency that Lotte has signed to sell its entire stake in its China-based company Lotte Glory Properties Shenyang running the project to a Shenyang-city-run company.<\/p>\n
The official did not provide the value of the contract, but reports say the deal fetches up to 450 billion won (US$327 million).<\/p>\n
The “Lotte Town” project that includes a theme park, a residential area, a department store and a movie theater has been halted since 2017 due to diplomatic tensions between Seoul and Beijing.<\/p>\n
Korean retailers and other businesses have been hit hard by the lingering impact of a diplomatic dispute over the deployment in South Korea of a U.S. anti-missile system called THAAD in 2017.<\/p>\n
The company has recently signed a stock purchase agreement with a Shenyang city-run company to sell its China-base
\nd company running the project, though the sale process has yet to be finalized, a Lotte spokesperson said over the phone.<\/p>\n
Lotte kicked off the complex town project in 2008 with an aim to complete it in 2019 but it was suspended in December 2016 due to China’s so-called retaliations against the THAAD installation.<\/p>\n
Beijing opposed the THAAD system, arguing it could be used against the country, though Seoul said it is purely aimed at deterring missile threats from North Korea.<\/p>\n
Lotte sold most of its Lotte Mart outlets in 2018 and withdrew its food manufacturing business from China in the following year.<\/p>\n
In April 2020, the retail conglomerate closed the Lotte Department store in Shenyang, which had opened in May 2014 amid the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n
Lotte said it is also in the process of selling the Lotte Department store in Chengdu, the capital city of Sichuan Province, due to sluggish sales.<\/p>\n
Source: Yonhap News Agency<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
South Korean retail giant Lotte Group has signed a deal to sell its China theme park project to a local company in the Chinese northeastern city of Shenyang, a group official said Thursday.<\/p>\n
The group official told Yonhap News Agency that Lotte has si…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n