Saudi Arabia is emerging as a new gold mine for South Korean builders as orders from the Middle East country jumped in the first three quarters of this year, a trade association said. According to the International Contractors Association of Korea (ICAK), orders won by South Korean builders from Saudi Arabia reached a record $10.7 billion from the beginning of this year to September, far outnumbering Iraqi orders worth $3.3 billion and $2.7 billion of Singapore, reports Yonhap News Agency. The figure is nearly double the orders worth $5.6 billion the builders won from the Middle East country in the same period last year, Bernama news agency said, citing ICAK. The total amount of Saudi orders will go up further, once Samsung C&T Corp's $2.1 billion deal to build a thermal power plant in the country earlier this month is added, which was not included in the tally, ICAK said. For the past five years, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was the biggest market for South Korean builders, but they clinched only $1.3 billion in orders from the UAE during the same period. ICAK said that 43 South Korean builders are working on 40 projects in Saudi Arabia, including 29 new projects won this year. The boom is attributable to Saudi Arabia's recent expansion of projects ranging from desalination, electricity and oil refining facilities to polysilicon plants and optical cable building projects, noted ICAK. Samsung Engineering Co. gained $4.2 billion in Saudi orders, while Samsung C&T won $2.1 billion in orders and SK Engineering & Construction Co. clinched $1.8 billion, it said. Saudi Electricity Co. signed a deal recently with a consortium led by Saudi Acwa Power Projects and including South Korea's Samsung C&T to build a 4,000-megawatt (MW) gas fired power plant aimed at keeping up with rapidly rising Saudi power demand. The giant gas plant in Al-Qurayyah, south of the eastern city of Al-Khobar, will burn 600 million cubic feet a day (mcfd) of natural gas, Amer Al-Swaha, head of Independent Power Projects (IPP) at SEC, said. "A growing number of builders are competing here in Saudi Arabia," said an official at the Saudi office of the state-run Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency. "South Korean builders should maintain price competitiveness and form close partnerships with Saudi firms to build an information network."
