S Korea-public firms
Public firms' debt up 15 pct in 2022 amid higher energy costs
By Kang Yoon-seung
SEOUL, April 28 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's state-run firms saw their debt rise 15 percent on-year in 2022, data showed Friday, led mostly by the Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO), which has been suffering from soaring energy import prices.
The combined amount of debt held by the country's 344 firms, which excludes three state-run banks, reached 670 trillion won (US$499 billion) in 2022, compared to 582.4 trillion won tallied a year earlier, according to the Ministry of Economy and Finance.
"Due to the rising price of raw materials starting 2021, the financial health of KEPCO and the Korea Gas Corporation has been deteriorating, which induced them to issue more bonds starting in January 2022," the finance ministry said.
The ministry noted that the debt-to-equity ratio, which reached 174.3 percent in 2022, up 22.5 percentage points on-year, rather improved over the period when excluding the two energy firms -- from 130 percent to 128 percent over the period.
The combined expenditure on benefits for state-run firms, meanwhile, increased by 2.6 percent on-year to reach 867.5 billion won, primarily attributed to pandemic-related spending.
The number of workers at such organizations increased 6,600 on-year to 445,000 in 2022, although the figure fell to 436,000 in the first quarter of 2023 following the government's efforts to tighten their belts.
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