Corporate failures fall to 4-month low in July

The number of South Korean corporate bankruptcies declined to a four-month low in July due to falls in failures of manufacturers and builders, the central bank said Sunday.

The number of companies that went belly-up totaled 95 in July, compared with 103 tallied in the previous month, according to the Bank of Korea.

The July data marked the lowest level since the number of corporate failures hit a record low of 90 in March.

Meanwhile, the number of newly established companies came in at record 7,127 in July, up 383 from the previous month, the BOK added.

The default rate of corporate bills ― bonds, checks and promissory notes ― reached 0.02 percent last month, unchanged from the previous month, the BOK said.

The BOK forecast the Korean economy to grow 3 percent this year, lower than the government’s projection of 3.3 percent.

Slowing growth and easing inflationary pressure led the central bank to cut the key rate by a quarter percentage point to 3 percent in July. The bank held the borrowing costs steady this month to assess impacts of the rate cut on the local economy. (Yonhap News)