Price-Costco Plans Warehouse In Seoul, South Korea, Next Year

KIRKLAND - Price-Costco Inc. will open its first Pacific Rim warehouse store in Seoul, South Korea, in late 1994.

The company recently signed an agreement with a South Korean retailer to work jointly on that country's first membership-warehouse store, Ted Wallace, Price-Costco executive vice president, said last week.

Price-Costco will provide Shinsegae Ltd. with training, technical knowledge and sources of products to open the 100,000-square-foot warehouse store next year, Wallace said.

The recently merged warehouse chain has stores in Canada and Mexico and plans to open its first European store in Britain at the end of the month.

"Mexico, Canada and England are all very similar to the U.S.," Wallace said. "In the Pacific Rim, there are much greater differences in culture and land costs."

Price and Costco, which merged last month, have been deluged with requests for joint ventures in foreign countries, Wallace said.

"There are 45 million people in (South) Korea," Wallace said. "Seoul alone has 12 million people. This is one of the strongest and highest income-per-capita countries in the Pacific Rim."

Shinsegae will front the venture, will provide workers and receive a significant percentage of the profits, Wallace said. He declined to reveal financial terms.

Additional stores will depend on the success of the Seoul venture, he said. Most would likely be smaller because of high land costs, he said.