Lotte Corp. Vice chairman Hwang Kag-gyu, second from right, and IIT Madras Research Park engineers are looking at a lab test result on May 28, 2019. [Photo provided by Lotte Group]

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Korea’s retail giant Lotte Group is building a research and development center in India as it looks to the world’s second most populated market for its digital campaign and overseas growth after it pulled out retail business from China after it bore retaliatory action amid diplomatic row.

Lotte Group said Wednesday it is readying to open an R&D center within a research park at Indian Institute of Technology Madras in Chennai, India, in the second half of this year. The IIT Madras Research Park’s current occupants include research labs of various global enterprises and promising startups, which would help create synergy with Lotte, said the Korean company.

Tentatively named as Lotte India R&D Center, its engineers will collaborate with India’s top IT specialist on strengthening its R&D capabilities including developing a facility monitoring solution using drone and smart manufacturing process control system, said the company.

“India, as world’s second populous country and an IT powerhouse, is the key region for Lotte’s advancement into the greater Asian market,” said Hwang Kag-gyu, vice chairman of Lotte Group’s holding entity Lotte Corp, who is now on a six-day visit to India. Hwang, the group’s de facto No. 2 in command and right-hand man of Lotte Group Chairman Shin Dong-bin, visited the IIT Madras Research Park for a status check-up on the group’s new R&D center and its business in India.

Lotte entered India in the late 1990s by exporting snacks. It has steadily expanded its business in the country by acquiring local confectionary companies and building snack manufacturing plants in the following years. Also, the group’s logistics and industrial materials making units have offices in the country.

Shin, the group’s chairman, also has met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi three times already, to seek greater cooperation on expanding its business in India.

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