No. of foreign companies in S. Korea more than doubles in 10 years

SEOUL, Jan. 6 (Yonhap) -- The number of foreign companies operating in South
Korea more than doubled in 10 years, a government report said Wednesday.

The report released by the National Tax Service (NTS) showed that South Korea
attracted 9,612 foreign companies as of 2008. The number was 4,317 in 1998.
The number of foreign companies peaked in 2007 with 9,682 in the country, but 70
out of them withdrew after the U.S. investment bank Lehman Brother's collapse
ignited the financial crisis.
Some 69 percent of the 9,612 were those with more than 10 percent of their assets
financed directly by foreigners, according to the report. The rest were
subsidiaries or branch offices of the foreign corporations.
The number of foreign companies operating wholesaling came to 2,799, making up 29
percent of all the foreign companies. Wholesalers were followed by manufacturing
with 21.4 percent and the service industry with 21.37 percent.
About 80 percent of the foreign companies were located in the metropolitan area,
with 62.3 percent in the capital city of Seoul.
Among the 3,019 subsidiaries or branch offices, U.S. corporations accounted for
13 percent with 391, followed by Japan with 12.6 percent, Hong Kong with 4
percent, China with 3.7 percent and Singapore with 3.3. percent.
ygkim@yna.co.kr
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