GMAT Sentence Correction (SC) | Re: QOTD: In South Korea in the early 2000s

Option A,B,E can be eliminated basis the pronoun reference of 'they' to 'assets' This comparison doesnt make sense.
So the comparison is between C and D.

C. In South Korea, the nation’s ten largest companies experienced rapid asset growth in the early 2000s, fueled by their rapid expansion into new lines of business: they had a total of 592 subsidiaries in 2011, nearly twice that of 2002.
Here 'the nation's' is redundant,..In South Korea, the ten largest companies experienced.... this would
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