Regulation Costs
The annual expense for regulating companies in Korea has reached 36 trillion won.
The small and mid-sized company Ombudsman reported on March 11 that the domestic regulation expense as of 2013 reached 36.2 trillion won (US$32.2 billion). The figure is two times higher than the average of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. The regulation expense compared to per capita gross domestic product (GDP) was 2.5 percent, which is the ninth highest among 33 OECD countries.
By industry, the knowledge service industry had the largest expense at 8.9 trillion won (US$7.9 billion), followed by the distribution service, the individual service, and the intermediary goods manufacturing industries.
However, the regulation expense compared to 2008 reduced slightly. The annual regulation expense in 2008 was 48.3 trillion won (US$43.1 billion), and that was 4.4 percent compared to the per capita GDP.