In the first quarter of this year, the value of domestic construction contracts rose more than 20% from a year earlier, driven by new semiconductor plants and data center projects.
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said on the 26th that the aggregates of construction contracts signed in the first quarter of this year totaled 74.1 trillion won. That was up 23.4% from the same period last year (60.1 trillion won).
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) said, "Looking at construction contract statistics over the past 10 years, after hitting a peak in the second quarter of 2022 (82.7 trillion won) and declining through the third quarter of 2023 (45.5 trillion won), the market has been recovering," adding that first-quarter contract value this year has rebounded to nearly 90% of the peak.
By ordering entity, the private institutional sector stood out. Private institutional sector contracts came to 49 trillion won, up 35.6% on-year. The increase reflects concentrated investment in large-scale industrial facilities such as semiconductor manufacturing plants and information and communications data centers. The public sector also rose 5.0% to 25.1 trillion won as major state projects, including the Pocheon power plant and development at Busan Port, moved forward.
By type of work, the industrial facilities institutional sector jumped 159%. Buoyed by that, civil engineering orders rose 35.8% to 29 trillion won, and building construction also increased 16.6% to 45.1 trillion won on the back of private manufacturing plant expansions and dwellings projects.
By corporate size, workload concentration at large builders was notable. Contracts for the top 1 to 50 companies by construction capacity surged 40.2% on-year to 37.7 trillion won. In contrast, companies ranked 51 to 100 edged up just 0.3% to 4.5 trillion won.
By region, based on where projects are executed, the greater Seoul area led the market, jumping 41.8% to 39.2 trillion won. Non-capital regions also grew 7.8% to 34.9 trillion won. However, by company headquarters location, firms based in the capital region swept up 47.7 trillion won, up 48.2%, while builders headquartered in the provinces saw contract value fall 5.4% to 26.3 trillion won, pointing to worsening regional polarization.