U.S. retail giant Costco announced the start of the construction of its second store on the Chinese mainland on Thursday in Shanghai.

The new store, on a piece of 47,320-square-meter land in Kangqiao, Shanghai's Pudong New Area, will have a floor area of 143,000 square meters to cover an office and a warehouse store, the company said at a ceremony. The store is not far from the Shanghai Disney Resort.

The project has a total investment of 2.6 billion yuan (about 371.2 million U.S. dollars), the company said, adding that the construction work is under full preparation and will soon break ground.

Costco opened its first store on the Chinese mainland last August in Shanghai's Minhang district on the west side of Huangpu River, which has since attracted huge crowds of shoppers.