Overseas orders won by South Korean builders fell 35 percent in the first half of this year from a year earlier due mainly to a one-off factor, a trade association said Friday.

   According to the International Contractors Association of Korea (ICAK), builders' overseas orders came to US$23.6 billion during the January-June period, down 35 percent from $36.4 billion during the same period in 2010.

   The first-half drop in overseas orders was mainly related to an $18.6 billion deal with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to build nuclear power plants in December 2009, which was recorded as an order for the first quarter of 2010, the ICAK noted.

   Excluding the UAE deal, orders actually grew 32 percent on-year in the January-June period. Compared with the first half of 2009, the builders' overseas orders rose 80 percent in the first six months of 2011, the ICAK added.

   Orders from Arab countries stood at $17.2 billion, accounting for 73 percent, more than double the year-earlier number, despite the political unrest in some Middle Eastern and North African countries.

   Orders from Asia stood at $4.5 billion and African deals reached $0.8 billion, it added.

   The ICAK said that deals to build plants came to $17.8 billion, accounting for three quarters of the total. In March, Samsung Engineering Co. won a $2.7 billion order from Saudi Arabia to build a gas-oil complex.

Source: Yonhap News (July 1, 2011)