The number of companies listed on the local stock markets is expected to surpass two-thousand this year.

According to Korea Exchange, the local bourse operator, the number of listed firms in the country was one-thousand-987 at the end of last year.

Of them, 779 were listed on the benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index(KOSPI), nine more compared with a year earlier, and one-thousand-208 on the tech-heavy KOSDAQ, up by 56 from a year ago.

If the trend holds up, the number of listed firms will go up beyond two-thousand this year.

The fast growth of the KOSDAQ has been crucial to the numerical growth of the local bourse, with its number jumping from 359 to when it was established in 1997.

On the other hand, the number of the listed firms on the KOSPI has changed little from 776 at the end of 1997.

The combined market cap of the KOSPI and KOSDAQ has substantially jumped from 78 trillion won, or 68-point-five billion U.S. dollars, in 1997 to one-thousand-510 trillion won last year.

Individually, the market cap of the KOSPI rose 18-point-four times to one-thousand-308 trillion won, while that of the KOSDAQ jumped 29-fold to 202 trillion won.