South Korea has the second-highest level of social friction in major economies and its economic costs are estimated at up to 246 trillion won ($220 billion), a research fellow said Wednesday.

South Korea's social friction index stood at 0.72 as of 2010, the highest level only behind Turkey whose index stood at 1.27, said Park Jun, a research fellow for the Samsung Economic Research Institute, a private think tank of South Korea's top conglomerate Samsung Group.

Park made the comment in a public symposium meant to address social friction.

His finding is the latest reminder of social friction in a country where many people are deeply divided along political, regional and ideological fault lines.

The index was calculated from Gini coefficient, democracy index and indexes to measure government efficiency among 27 major economies that belong to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Denmark's index stood at 0.25, the lowest level of social friction among the major economies. It was followed by Germany with 0.35 and Britain and Japan both with 0.41, according to the institute. A higher index means a high level of social friction.

Park said South Korea's economic costs arising from social friction are estimated at between 82 trillion won and 246 trillion won per year. To put the costs into perspective, South Korea's legislature approved the 342 trillion won budget in January. (Yonhap News)