The government has drawn up a five-year plan to shift the overseas construction industry from simple building work to a high value-added industry based on technology and finance. It will foster new businesses such as artificial intelligence (AI) cities and Small Modular Reactor (SMR) projects and expand financial support for investment and development projects, while dispatching a contract-winning support team to the United States to pursue orders for overseas projects.
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said on the 5th that it has established the Fifth Basic Plan for Overseas Construction Promotion (2026-2030) reflecting these details.
This plan is a statutory plan under the Overseas Construction Promotion Act and focuses on enhancing the competitiveness of the overseas construction industry based on technological prowess and global finance and shifting it to an advanced-economy industrial structure.
The government plans to support entry into package-type projects that cover everything from engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) to operations and maintenance (O&M) by leveraging corporations' strong technologies in suspension bridges, supertall buildings and immersed tunnels.
It will also focus on nurturing new business areas such as floating liquefied natural gas production facilities (FLNG), data centers, SMR, carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS), and AI cities.
Financial support to boost investment and development projects will also be expanded. Korea Overseas Infrastructure & Urban Development Corporation (KIND) and domestic corporations will jointly invest in a corporate matching fund and create country-specific strategic funds with the participation of sovereign wealth funds and state-run banks overseas, while supporting domestic corporations' participation in multilateral development bank (MDB) projects through cooperation with global developers.
A cooperative system involving the government, public institutions and private corporations will be established to support winning overseas infrastructure orders linked to high-level economic diplomacy.
As the first implementation measure of the basic plan, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) will dispatch a contract-winning support team to the United States from the 5th to the 9th, led by First Vice Minister Kim Ei-tak as Director General. The team will attend a signing ceremony for a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on a lithium and boron plant project in Nevada and events related to a blue ammonia plant in Indiana, and plans to discuss new infrastructure cooperation projects with the U.S. government.