Startup growth in South Korea continued in the first half of this year due to an increase in the launch of the wholesale and retail businesses, a government data showed Monday.
The number of companies newly registered with the court as a corporate body stood at 52,790 in the January-June period, up 6.8 percent from a year earlier, according to data from the Ministry of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) and Startups.
The launch of new startups in the first half kept an upward trend from 37,913 in 2013 to 41,485 in 2014, 46,418 in 2015, 48,263 in 2016 and 49,424 in 2017, respectively.
The newly launched companies in the wholesale and retail sector was 12,014 in the first half, taking up 22.8 percent of the total. It was followed by the manufacturing sector which created 9,145 startups, or 17.3 percent of the total.
New companies in the construction industry was 5,649, or 10.7 percent of the total, in the first half. The real estate industry created 4,973 startups, or 9.4 percent of the total.
