GCC is South Korea’s largest EPC market
The UAE is Korea’s largest country customer, with 35.77% of all Korean EPC contracts abroad
The Gulf Cooperation Council is South Korea’s largest engineering, procurement and contracting market overseas, the head of the Middle East team at the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy, has said.
In a seminar, Baran Han told regional market investors that the GCC region accounted for up to 60% of all South Korean EPC contracts abroad, with a total value of $43.5bn in 2011, Gulf News, a Dubai based newspaper said.
“South Korean firms take up approximately 50% of the total EPC market share in the GCC. Most of these projects are in petrochemicals, desalination and energy,” he added.
In terms of countries, he estimated that the UAE was the biggest overseas EPC market, while 35.77% of all Korean EPC contracts abroad were located in the UAE.
“Trade volume between the two countries reached $18.02bn in 2011,” Han said.
“The GCC is now South Korea’s fourth largest trading partner, with Korean imports and exports to the region achieving a growth of 11.2% and 13.8% respectively from 1990 to 2010,” he pointed out. South Korea was the GCC’s sixth largest trading partner, he added.
