April 18, 2024

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[THE INVESTOR] The number of newly established companies in Korea increased 7.8 percent last year, government data showed on Dec. 14.

In 2016, some 876,000 new companies were created, up 63,000 from the year before, according to the data compiled by the Statistics Korea. Employees working for these companies reached over 1.32 million last year, a gain of 6.8 percent from a year earlier.

While newly launched companies rose sharply, the total number of firms that closed during the one-year period fell 17.6 percent on-year to 640,000, they showed.

The statistical office said there were some 5.77 million operational companies last year, up 4 percent from a year earlier.

Among operational companies, 15.2 percent were new businesses, up 0.6 percentage point from 2015, it said.

  By Alex Lee and newswires (alexlee@heraldcorp.com)