Busan Companies' Status Declines! ... Nationwide Sales of Top 1000 Busan Companies Hit Record Low

Busan Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Hwang Duyul] In 2021, companies nationwide showed a recovery in sales to pre-COVID-19 levels, but companies in Busan failed to recover.

The structural vulnerability of Busan’s industry, with a lower proportion of high value-added new industries compared to other regions, was fully exposed, deepening concerns in the local economy.

On the 22nd, the Busan Chamber of Commerce and Industry announced in its “2021 Analysis of Busan Companies among the Top 1,000 Nationwide Companies by Sales” that the number of Busan companies listed among the top 1,000 companies nationwide by sales was 27.

According to the survey, this figure decreased by 2 companies from 29 in 2020, the lowest record since the survey began, marking an all-time low.

Compared to the record high of 55 companies in 2008, this number is less than half.

Moreover, some Busan companies included in this year’s top 1,000 list are even showing signs of relocating to other regions, suggesting that the number of Busan companies among the top 1,000 nationwide may further decline in the future.

By company, Renault Korea Motors, the undisputed number one in regional sales, dropped to 120th place nationwide due to decreased effects from new car launches and weakened competitiveness, resulting in sluggish domestic sales.

Representative companies symbolizing Busan, such as Air Busan and Busan Lotte Hotel, also failed to escape the aftermath of the COVID-19 crisis, showing poor performance by not making the top 1,000 nationwide companies list in 2021, following 2020.

Overall, in 2021, five companies dropped out of the top 1,000, while three new companies entered.

Dongwon Development, Doodong Urban Development, Dongsung Fine Tech, Hyupsung Renaissance, and Panasia were pushed out of the top 1,000 due to decreased sales following the end of their sales projects and poor performance caused by deteriorating business conditions.

On the other hand, Dongsung Motors, which expanded its facilities, BNK Investment & Securities, which increased sales through diversified revenue strategies, and YK Steel, whose 2020 sales were not counted due to a physical division, newly entered the list in 2021.

Looking at the changes in national rankings of the 27 Busan companies in the top 1,000, only seven companies improved their national rankings compared to 2020: Korea Exchange rose from 721st to 574th, SM Line from 372nd to 229th, Taekwang Fujikin from 937th to 815th, Daehan Steel from 461st to 397th, Intergis from 851st to 795th, Sewoon Steel from 588th to 535th, and BNK Capital from 468th to 456th. The remaining 17 companies all saw their national rankings decline.

The total sales of the 27 regional companies included in the 2021 top 1,000 nationwide companies amounted to 30.07 trillion KRW, a 7.7% increase compared to 27.928 trillion KRW from 29 companies in 2020.

However, this is a modest level compared to the national average growth rate of 15.2%, the 16.3% increase among companies in the Seoul Metropolitan Area including Seoul, Gyeonggi, and Incheon, and the 33.2% increase in the Chungnam and Chungbuk regions.

Meanwhile, the concentration of the top 1,000 nationwide companies in the Seoul Metropolitan Area remains strong.

In 2021, 751 of the top 1,000 companies by sales were concentrated in Seoul, Gyeonggi, and Incheon.

Narrowing the scope to companies ranked within the top 100 nationwide, 92 are located in the Seoul Metropolitan Area, with 78 of those in Seoul, making it difficult to shake off the stigma of the “Seoul Republic.”

A representative from the Busan Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s Corporate Trend Analysis Center said, “To restore the declining status of Busan companies, the relocation of financial public enterprises including the Korea Development Bank and the attraction of large corporations could be short-term remedies. However, more fundamentally, local companies need to enter new growth high-tech industries to expand their scale and enhance corporate competitiveness by increasing the high value-added nature of existing businesses.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.