South Korea's national net assets rise to $11.6 trillion

The national net assets, which measure the country's total wealth by deducting debts from assets, amounted to 13,078 trillion won ($11.6 trillion) as of end-2016, up 5.8 percent from a year earlier.

The increase was mainly attributed to higher valuation of non-productive assets such as land and buildings.

Land assets expanded 6.2 percent last year, taking up over half of the total national net assets.

Non-financial assets, which include real estate, buildings, facilities and intellectual property rights, accounted for 97.4 percent of the total national net assets.

The trickle-down effect was not found as more wealth coming from economic growth moved to companies than households.

The portion of assets owned by households and non-profit organizations was 57.6 percent of the total as of end-2016, down 0.4 percentage points from a year earlier.

The growth rate of households' net assets slowed down from 6.2 percent in 2015 to 5.0 percent in 2016, but the figure for non-financial companies accelerated from 7.5 percent to 8.9 percent in the same period. ■