This reference claims at least 20% to kill off bacteria: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt-cured_meat
Suggest you look up recipes and calculate the concentration. I've seen salt added to whatever is being cured as salt crystals, so it is difficult to calculate the concentration (saturated?)
It depends on food formulation, But many researches are shown that concentrations of salt up to 20% are required to inactive most pathogenic microorganisms such as yeast and bacteria.
It definitely depends on the type of food to preserve. There are standards available, like Codex Alimentarius Commission. They adopt standards after looking at many researches. Likewise, we have in the GCC countries Gulf Standardisation Organisation . To site few examples Salt content in brine for Black olives is 7.0 %, Green Olives 5.0%, Cucumbers 0.5 - 10 .0 %, Tinned Mushroom 2.0 % Generally, Pickled fruits and /or vegetables packed in brine medium shall have the percentage of salt content be sufficient to ensure the proper preservation of the product. U need to do some exercise like what type of organism can grow in a particular product and the tolerance of salt level, etc.
As it had been mentioned before, its depends on the kind of preserved food, either its meat, vegetable, fruit, also the period for preserving(for weeks, months, or more). You need to review the Codex Alimentarius Commission.