SEOUL, Aug. 19 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's corporate default rate went up in July as more companies in the service sector became insolvent, the South Korean central bank said Tuesday.

    According to the Bank of Korea (BOK), number of business failures in July amounted to 209, compared with 191 in June.

    The number service companies that went bust reached 97 in July, up 74 from June, while failures of manufacturers dropped by 11 to 56 and builders by 4 to 42, the BOK said.

    The central bank said the default rate on corporate bills, including bonds, checks and promissory notes, stood at 0.02 percent, down 0.01 percentage point from June's figure.