South Korea’s top 30 conglomerates are planning to expand their investments in 2016, but spending on research will likely stay almost unchanged from a year earlier, according to a survey on Wednesday.

According to the survey by the Federation of Korean Industries, the conglomerates said they plan to invest 122.7 trillion won ($101.3 billion) this year, up 5.2 percent from a year earlier.


The survey showed that investment in facilities will grow 7.1 percent on-year to 90.9 trillion won.

However, spending on research and development is expected to remain almost unchanged at 31.8 trillion won.

The figures are based on the annual breakdown of each conglomerate’s annual and mid-term investment plans.

Samsung Group, the country’s largest family-owned conglomerate, plans to spend 15.6 trillion won in building semiconductor facilities until 2018. Auto giant Hyundai Motor Group will invest 13.3 trillion won in green and smart car projects until the same year.

Last year, the 30 conglomerates invested a total of 116.6 trillion won out of the 125.9 trillion won they had aimed to spend annually.

Meanwhile, the survey showed that 80 percent of these companies expect to see the prospects of their overall business conditions get worse this year, while 6.7 percent expect a slight improvement. More than half said that the economy will not start to recover until 2018.

Slumping exports were cited as the most serious challenge, with 30 percent of the companies saying so. Falling profitability, volatile financial markets and weak consumption came next.

(khnews@heraldcorp.com)