South Korea's largest conglomerates invested more than 500 billion won, or nearly 449 million U.S. dollars, in their subcontractors last year to strengthen their partner companies' competitiveness.
 
According to the Federation of Korean Industries' Center for Large and Small Business Cooperation, the top 60 groups invested 530 billion won in their subcontractors so that they may develop new products and produce parts domestically.
 
Funding for technology development totaled 529-point-three billion won for around 28-thousand cases, up from 465-point-five billion won and 23-thousand cases in 2014.
 
Funding for technology protection, including applications for joint patents, came to one-point-three billion won, which was more than four times that of the previous year.