SEOUL, KOREA - Thanks to a rapid rise in order volume in new markets such as Europe, Latin America, and Africa, Korean construction contractors could hope for breaking the US$70-billion mark in overseas orders by the year's end in four years since 2010 when they signed $71.5-billion orders.
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transportation said on September 30 that the overseas construction order volume until the end of the third quarter was $48.3 billion, up 5.2 percent from the previous year's $45.9 billion. Comparing to the past five-year average figure of $45.0 billion, this is 19.3 percent higher. This is second highest after that in 2010 when Korean builders won a big nuclear power plant project ($18.6 billion) from the United Arab Emirates.
By region, the Middle East took the largest portion with 54.3 percent ($26.2 billion), followed by Latin America including countries like Chile and Venezuela with 11.5 percent ($5.5 billion) and Africa like Nigeria with 4.3 percent ($2.0 billion). Given Korean contractors have more than $15 billion already-won orders and will bid for projects worth $100 billion by the year's end, the ministry expected that reaching the $70-billion milestone would be not so difficult.
Following the dispatch of government officials to Kuwait and Spain in support of project biddings in September, the ministry will also send officials to Azerbaijan in October and Paraguay and Bolivia in December.
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