Seoul: South Korea's combined spending on research and development (R and D) projects, including those from the private sector, accounted for 5 percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP) in 2024, a government report showed Friday. The country spent 131 trillion won (US$90 billion) on R and D projects in 2024, up 11.9 trillion won from the previous year.

According to Yonhap News Agency, the spending accounted for 5.13 percent of the country's annual GDP that year, up from 4.94 percent in 2023. The study was conducted under guidelines from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development on 69,042 local organizations, including public research centers, universities, and businesses.

Private companies accounted for the majority of the R and D spending with 106.6 trillion won, followed by public research centers with 13.2 trillion won and universities with 8.4 trillion won. The number of researchers came to 615,063 in 2024, up 1.9 percent from a year earlier. The portion of female researchers reached 24.2 percent, up from 23.7 percent in 2023, the data showed.