SEOUL, Sept 18 (Reuters) - South Korea's competition

regulator on Thursday conditionally approved a joint venture

between Alibaba International's AliExpress Korea and a unit of

local company Shinsegae, but cited concerns over the sharing of

customer information.

The Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) in a statement noted

a "significant worry" over the joint venture that will control

Korean e-commerce platform Gmarket and AliExpress Korea.

Sharing Gmarket's information on 50 million Korean customers

and utilising Ali's data analysis technology would increase

their dominance of the local online shopping industry, the

regulator said.

The companies must show they can independently manage their

businesses and would be prohibited from sharing data on overseas

shopping by Korean customers within three years, the KFTC said.

The joint venture would increase their total market share in

overseas online shopping to 41% and the share may rise amid

AliExpress's aggressive expansion in Korea, it said.

Online shopping by Koreans for products shipped from China

increased 32% to 4.7 trillion won ($3.40 billion) in 2024 from a

year earlier, according to the commission. Alibaba ( BABA ) accounted for

62% of the sales by value, it said.

($1 = 1,382.4000 won)