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Photo = Yonhap news |
[Alpha Biz= Reporter Kim Jisun] A recent survey revealed that 7 out of 10 major South Korean companies have either no plans or are uncertain about their investment strategies for 2025. Among those who do have investment plans, many are considering reducing the scale of their investments.
According to a survey conducted by the Korea Economic Association between November 13-25, commissioned through the polling agency Monoresearch, 68% of the top 500 companies by revenue reported this sentiment. Specifically, 56.6% of the 122 responding companies stated they had not yet established investment plans for next year, while 11.4% outright stated they had no plans at all. This marks a significant shift from last year, as the outlook on the economy has worsened. The proportion of companies unsure about their plans increased by 6.9 percentage points, and those with no plans grew by 6.1 percentage points compared to the previous year.
The reasons cited by companies for not having investment plans included restructuring and personnel changes (37.7%), the need to assess internal and external risks (27.5%), and the uncertainty surrounding both domestic and global economic forecasts for next year (20.3%). Even among the 32% of companies with plans for investment, 28.2% said they would reduce their investment compared to this year, while only 12.8% planned to increase it. The remaining 59% expected to maintain investment at similar levels to this year.
Companies that are scaling back or have no investment plans cited major risks that would significantly affect next year's corporate investments, with global economic slowdown (42.9%) being the top concern. Other risks included high exchange rates and inflationary pressures (23.0%), as well as the spread of protectionism and worsening supply chain disruptions (13.7%).
The margin of error for the survey is ±8.15 percentage points at a 95% confidence level.
Alphabiz Reporter Kim Jisun(stockmk2020@alphabiz.co.kr)
