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Number of new companies up in 2017 on economic recovery

Dec. 10, 2018 - 16:00 By Yonhap

The number of newly established companies in South Korea rose 4.2 percent on year in 2017, as the economy rebounded on robust exports, government data showed Monday.

Some 913,000 new businesses were created last year, up 37,000 from the 876,000 tallied a year earlier, according to the data compiled by Statistics Korea.


(Yonhap)

They made up 15.1 percent of the 6.05 million "operational companies" doing business in South Korea last year, down slightly from 15.2 percent in 2016.

The number of firms that closed in 2017 fell 2.2 percent to 626,000, equal to 10.8 percent of the operational companies that year.

South Korea's economy expanded 3.1 percent in 2017, compared with 2.9 percent growth in 2016.

The latest data, meanwhile, showed that 65.3 percent of all newly launched businesses in 2015 were still open in 2016, while only 28.5 percent of those that opened in 2011 survived until 2016.

The data showed more than 70 percent of electricity, health care, transportation and manufacturing businesses reached their second year in 2017, while estimates for the finance and insurance, wholesale and retail, and art and sports sectors were just under the 50 percent mark. (Yonhap)