The number of South Korean corporate bankruptcies soared due to a liquidity crunch amid a protracted economic slump. The dishonored bill ratio rose to 0.16 percent in October, the highest level in 16 months, the central bank said Monday.
The number of firms that went bankrupt totaled 116 last month, compared with 102 in September, but there were no big company insolvency.
The nationwide dishonored bill ratio grew 0.04 percentage point in October from a month ago, said the Bank of Korea (BOK). The figure for Seoul was 0.12 percent, up by 0.03 percentage points and the figure for regional areas was 0.45 percent, up by 0.09 percentage points.
The bill dishonored by the 116 bankrupt companies amounted to 586 billion won ($519 million), the largest level both in size and percentage since June 2011. Given an administrative error that led to a large insolvency of a brokerage in June 2011, the figure was the highest since the first half of 2010.
[Written by Beom-joo Jeon / edited by Soyoung Chung]
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