Several domestic steelmakers and petrochemical companies are struggling because of critical conditions amid a serious supply glut.
And the National Assembly's slowness to enact related laws to ease the problem is responsible, industry sources say.
According to the central Bank of Korea's analysis of corporate management in 2014, the petrochemical sector's interest coverage ratio ― earnings divided by interest charges as a measure of a company's ability to pay its debt ― plunged to the 300 percent range from the 1,000 percent range in 2011.
The comparable ratio for the steel industry dropped from 600 percent to 300 percent.
If the ratio of a company falls below 100 percent, it means the company cannot even pay the interest on its debt. Companies whose interest coverage ratio stays below 100 percent for three straight years are categorized as marginal.
Industry experts say that if the government manages to work out a system for restructuring until the supply glut becomes more serious, the petrochemical and steel makers may follow the shipbuilders, which have been reeling from global oversupply.
Because the steel and petrochemical industries produce primary industrial goods, their problems can be critical to the overall economy.
The National Assembly needs to legislate the Special Law for Enhancing Corporate Vigor, or the so-called ''one-shot law," which can remove tax and other regulations in one fell swoop to help facilitate mergers and acquisitions within troubled industries, critics say.