Seoul, March 3 (IANS) The number of startups in South Korea is down more than 7 percent in 2022 from a year earlier amid a sluggish real estate market, government data showed on Friday.

A total of 1.317 million new businesses were created in the country last year, down 7.1 percent from a year earlier, according to data from the Ministry of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) and Startups.

The ministry attributed the decline largely to stricter rules on home rentals, declining real estate transactions and low property profits due to high interest rates, Yonhap news agency reports.

Also responsible was a global economic slump triggered by the so-called three highs — high consumer prices, interest rates and exchange rates, it added.

The number of newly established real estate companies fell by 35.2 percent from a year earlier to 206,000 last year.

Last year, a total of 67,000 construction companies were newly established, 5.9 percent less than the previous year, due to lower government spending on infrastructure and rising material costs.

The number of new manufacturing businesses fell 13.3 percent year-on-year to 42,000, while that of new hospitality businesses also fell 3 percent to 156,000.

Still, the number of newly established retailers and wholesalers rose 7.3 percent year-on-year to 456,000 on the back of increased contactless spending and e-commerce.

The data also showed that the share of technology-based startups reached an all-time high of 17.4 percent of last year’s total, according to the data.

–IANS