South Korea’s accumulated overseas construction deals exceed $1 trillion

Seoul: South Korean builders have achieved more than $1 trillion in accumulated overseas construction deals, the transport ministry said on Friday.

The achievement comes 59 years after Hyundai Engineering & Construction Co. obtained its first overseas deal to build an expressway in Thailand in November 1965.

Local builders secured $32.69 billion worth of overseas orders in the January-November period, the International Contractors Association of Korea said earlier, bringing the accumulated total to $996.5 billion as of end-November, reports Yonhap news agency.

The figure for December has yet to be released, but the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said the country’s accumulative overseas orders breached the $1 trillion mark during the month.

Nearly half of the orders in 2024 were from Saudi Arabia, according to the ministry.

The country has failed to meet its annual target of $40 billion in 2024, but its annual total reached the highest since 2015, when its overseas construction deals amounted to $46.1 billion, the ministry noted.

Meanwhile, domestic construction companies’ combined orders from the Middle East amounted to nearly US$10 billion this year, recording stellar growth from 2023, industry data showed recently.

According to the data from the International Contractors Association of Korea, domestic builders’ project orders from the Middle East amounted to $9.98 billion during the January-May period last year, logging an over sixfold jump from the $1.5 billion tally during the same period last year.

The strong on-year growth was attributed to Samsung E&A Co., previously known as Samsung Engineering Co., and GS Engineering & Construction Co. winning a $7.3 billion project in Saudi Arabia in April.

Backed by the strong performance in the Middle East, the total overseas orders of domestic builders between January and May amounted to $13.64 billion, recording the biggest tally for the period since 2020.

—IANS