The country’s 10 largest conglomerates on average spared less in social donations despite raking in a larger net profit last year, Chaebul.com reported on Sunday.

A total of seven conglomerates donated more funds for social contribution, but the remaining three gave considerably less, dragging down the average, said the portal devoted to information on top conglomerates here.

The seven groups that gave more are Samsung, Hyundai Motor, LG, Lotte, POSCO, Hanjin and Hanwha. Samsung Group made the most donations last year, followed by Hyundai Motor Group.

On the contrary, three others ― SK, Hyundai Heavy Industries and GS considerably cut their social contribution funds.

In 2011, these firms spent as much as 2.5 percent of their total net profit on social contribution, according to Chaebul.com. But last year, their budget on average shrank to about 1.9 percent of the total net profits.

The portal’s data showed that these 10 business tycoons and their 92 subsidiaries have slashed their social contribution expenses by about 7.3 percent compared to a year earlier.

In total, they have cut down by around 72.2 billion won ($64.1 million).

The donation cut belies their huge net profit in the same period, which in average shot up by about 20 percent, or by about 47.8 trillion won ($42.4 billion).

The 10 conglomerates may be small in number, but their giving has tremendous impact on the country’s annual non-state social donations, relief organization officials said.

Private relief organization Korea Disaster Relief Association raised concerns about the country’s ever-increasing dependency on social contribution funds from top givers who are mainly conglomerates.

By Chung Joo-won  (joowonc@heraldcorp.com)