Government office in Sejong City (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
SEOUL, April 30 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korean public firms’ liabilities reached another high in 2023 as they borrowed more money for projects meant to ease housing problems and build infrastructure, the finance ministry said Tuesday.
The combined debt of 324 public companies came to 709 trillion won (US$572.17 billion) last year, up 5.7 percent from a year earlier, according to the Ministry of Economy and Finance.
It marked the highest figure since 2005 when the government began compiling related data, though the increase slowed down compared with the previous year.
Last year’s debt growth came as the Korea Housing Finance Corp. provided 11.3 trillion won of special low-interest housing loans and the Korea Land & Housing Corp. spent 6.2 trillion won to build houses in new towns.
Korea Electric Power Corp. saw its liabilities grow 9.6 trillion won on rising costs for electric power supplies, the ministry said.
Public companies suffered net losses of 3.2 trillion won combined in 2023, compared with 14 trillion won of net losses the previous year.
Their combined assets added 4.6 percent on-year to 1,096.3 trillion won.
The public firms reduced the hiring of new employees for the fourth consecutive year in 2023.
The number of people newly employed at public institutes came to 20,000 last year, down from 25,000 a year earlier, the ministry said.
(Yonhap)
