Overseas orders for industrial plants won by South Korean builders hit an eight-year high in 2023 on the back of brisk demand from the Middle East.
According to the Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Energy on Monday, local builders clinched 30-point-23 billion dollars’ worth of orders from abroad last year, up 25 percent from the previous year.
It exceeded the government target of 30 billion dollars and marked the best performance since deals totaled 36-point-47 billion dollars in 2015.
The ministry said the record came down to the wire, with the figure standing at 28-point-seven billion dollars up to mid-December before surpassing the threshold after securing a one-point-five billion dollar order from Canada on December 29.
Orders from the Middle East accounted for 37-point-eight percent of the total at eleven-point-42 billion dollars, followed by the Americas with ten-point-14 billion dollars, or 33-point-five percent.
The single-largest order was a five-point-08 billion-dollar project secured by Hyundai Engineering and Construction to build a petrochemical plant in Saudi Arabia.