South Korea’s No. 2 retailer Lotte Shopping Co. plans to open eight stores at home and abroad this year, spending nearly 1.75 trillion won ($1.7 billion), company sources said Monday.

The local retailer will open a department store at its second Lotte World building in Jamsil, southern Seoul, followed by another in Suwon, 46 kilometers south of Seoul, in the second half of the year, the sources said.

Lotte also plans to launch a shopping mall complex comprised of a department store, an outlet mall and a discount store in the southern city of Busan, as well as three outlet malls in the Seoul metropolitan area.

Outlet malls refer to manufacturer-branded stores, usually located in the suburbs, where manufacturers sell their stock directly to the public at lower prices.

As for overseas, Lotte is scheduled to complete the first stage of construction of a shopping mall complex in Shenyang, northeastern China, in May.

Lotte will first open a department store and a theater chain and add discount store chain Lotte Mart in 2015 and an amusement park in 2016 at the Shenyang complex, the sources said.

The company also plans to complete a business hotel in Shenyang by 2017.

In September, Lotte Shopping will open its first Vietnamese branch of the department store.

The retailer will invest 1.25 trillion won for the department stores and 500 billion won in overseas Lotte Mart chains this year, the sources said. (Yonhap News)