Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Won Hee-ryong, sixth from left in the front, and officials of key economy-related ministries, financial authorities, state-run organizations and private firms raise their fist at an event celebrating the launch of One Team Korea, established to help the country win overseas construction orders at President Hotel in Seoul, Dec. 28. Korea Times file

Korea to become global top 4 construction powerhouse

By Lee Kyung-min

The government will outline a strategy to facilitate the export of a package of strong local industries encompassing Information Communications Technology (ICT), nuclear energy and defense under the overarching goal of securing overseas construction and infrastructure projects, the ministry said Tuesday.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said the policy initiative will generate overseas construction orders of at least $35 billion (44 trillion won) this year, thereby advancing the country in becoming the fourth-largest global construction market player. Korea is currently the fifth-largest market player with a total number of reported overseas construction orders of $927 billion over the past five decades as of Dec. 21.

A bespoke approach will be mapped out to expand its presence in and fortify cooperation with key partner countries including the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Indonesia, Vietnam, Peru and Mexico, helping Korea win overseas construction projects of $50 billion every year until 2027, as a key growth initiative of President Yoon Suk-yeol.

A greater number of construction projects will proceed in the form of public-private partnerships (PPP), whereby large-scale government infrastructure building projects are completed with private funding. The ceiling for the capital of the ministry-affiliated Korea Overseas Infrastructure and Urban Development Corporation (KIND) will be raised to 2 trillion won, up from the current 500 billion won.

Growth, innovation

"The government will reinvigorate private-led growth, as underpinned by policy fine-tuning to spur greater investments, technological innovation and market expansion," Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Won Hee-ryong said during a briefing of the ministry's directives for 2023 to Yoon.

Anchoring the drive will be a collective effort of One Team Korea, comprising key economy-related ministries, financial authorities and state-run organizations and private firms.

Strategies specific to the Middle East, for example, will focus on ways to help the oil-rich countries make a gradual yet effective transition to eco-friendly and sustainable city planning to buttress future growth drivers. Signs of change in Middle Eastern countries' mix of favored methods of energy towards nuclear power amount to another meaningful mutual opportunity to help them reduce dependence on fossil fuels, and instead choose nuclear power reactors, which have been developed in Korea, the ministry said.

The government will advance current official development assistance (ODA) programs with Korea's peers in Asia, to strengthen the government aid scheme so as to meet their infrastructure building and transport system construction demands. The growth potential of developing countries is substantial, since they will need large industrial complexes and smart, new cities.

Urban air mobility (UAM), autonomous driving and robot-performed automated services projects will pick up speed, as facilitated by a faster commercialization verification process and government-commissioned pilot programs.

The government will produce fully digitized maps containing all the relevant spatial and geographical information to assist high-tech projects, as enabled by Korea Augmentation Satellite System (KASS), a precision global positioning location system developed by the Korea Aerospace Research Institute.

The specifics of a fuller version of the digital conversion of key transportation systems will be announced in December.