Lotte Group, South Korea’s fifth-largest conglomerate, signed a memorandum of understanding with Kazakhstan’s Astana Group on Wednesday in a bid to boost cooperation for a theme park and retail business.

The Korean retail giant pledged to support Astana’s theme park business plan that the Kazakh firm is eyeing to develop ahead of Expo 2017, an international exposition scheduled to take place in 2017 in Astana, Kazakhstan’s capital city.

“Lotte Group will make an effort to support the creative economy by spreading its signature cultural content theme park and various distribution channels,” said Hwang Kak-gyu, Lotte corporate headquarters president. Hwang made the comments during the MOU signing ceremony attended by Astana Group’s president Nurlan Smagulov. 

Lotte has been running the amusement park Lotte World Adventure in Seoul since it opened in 1989.

Astana Group, Kazakhstan’s leading automotive retailer and real estate developer, will also consider adopting Lotte’s retail channels, according to a Lotte official. Lotte expects to reinforce its footing in the Kazakh market by also utilizing Astana Group’s retail channels.

Last year, the group’s fast food chain Lotteria signed a master franchise contract with Astana Group to launch the coffee chain Angel-in-us, which is set to open its first shop in the country this month.

Lotte Group made inroads into Kazakhstan for the first time in 2013 when its subsidiary firm Lotte Confectionary acquired Kazakhstan-based snack maker Rakhat.

By Park Han-na (hnpark@heraldcorp.com)