Construction orders won by South Korean builders from Saudi Arabia topped a landmark $100 billion this week for the first time in nearly four decades, a trade association said Tuesday.

According to the International Contractors Association of Korea, deals in Saudi Arabia that South Korean builders won reached a cumulative $100 billion as of Tuesday, 38 years after a South Korean company first clinched an order from the Middle Eastern country in 1973.

It is also the first time that South Korean builders have reached the $100 billion mark for orders from a single country, surpassing the total for orders from other Middle Eastern countries such as the United Arab Emirates with $59.7 billion and Libya with $36.6 billion, said the ICAK.

It also said that South Korean builders won orders worth $15.5 billion from Saudi Arabia this year alone, accounting for a whopping 35 percent of the $44.5 billion total of South Korea’s overseas orders for the year.

South Korean builders are on a roll in Saudi Arabia, with Daelim Industrial Co. winning a $1.22 billion deal to build a power plant last month and STX Construction Co. sealing a $116 million deal to build a residential complex earlier this month.

The total amount of Saudi orders will go up further once STX Heavy Industries Co.’s $2 billion deal to produce iron ore and build and operate power generation plants in the Middle Eastern country clinched earlier this month is added, which was not included in the tally, ICAK said.

“Saudi Arabia has been expanding investment in construction projects on the back of higher oil prices since the mid 2000s,” said an official from the ICAK. “Saudi Arabia will continue to place a series of lucrative public orders in the future including government-led development projects of its capital, Riyadh.” 

(Yonhap News)