Charitable donations by Korea's 10 largest conglomerates are dwindling despite years of relatively good growth.

According to the Financial Supervisory Service on Tuesday, conglomerates gave charities a total of W608.5 billion (US$1=W1,073) in donations last year, compared to nearly W641 billion in 2008. This means their contributions went down by over 5 percent, while their average combined profits went up by a whopping 70 percent during the same period.

In 2008, the companies donated about 3.2 percent of their profits to good causes, but just a year after, the percentage declined to 2 percent and fell even further to 1.8 percent in 2010.

Doosan Group subsidiaries cut charitable donations by massive 67.7 percent over this period while posting a rise in profits of almost 62 percent.

Experts say that donations by large conglomerates are inconsistent, and that they tend to give more money to charity when scandals, corruption and other illegal activities of their companies are revealed.