South Korean builders have amassed orders worth $24.6 billion from Middle East in the first five months of the year, accounting for 77.9 per cent of all global orders, said a report.

The total overseas construction orders rose to $31.6 billion till May, up 35 per cent compared to the same period last year, reported The Korea Herald, citing data from the International Contractors Association of Korea.

This was the highest in four years since a Korean consortium won a contract to build nuclear reactors in the UAE in 2010, the report added.

Massive multibillion-dollar plant deals, including Kuwait’s Clean Fuel project - in which four Korean giants were involved including Daewoo Engineering & Construction, Hyundai Heavy Industries Company, GS Engineering & Construction and SK Engineering & Construction - and oil refinery plant in Karbala, Iraq, - which involved a consortium of South Korean companies led by Hyundai Engineering & Construction - were the dominant contributors, it added.

Asia came next with a record $4.9 billion but the amount fell short of last year’s $10.1 billion due to a drop in the number of large-scale civil-engineering and plant construction projects.

The Korean industry experts expect the cumulative orders by the local builders to surpass $70 billion this year, up 7.4 percent from a year earlier.-TradeArabia News Service