Overseas orders for industrial plants won by South Korean companies inched down from a year earlier in 2012, largely due to a drop in demand from Middle Eastern countries, the government said Monday.

Orders grabbed by South Korean builders amounted to $64.8 billion last year, down 0.3 percent from $65 billion in 2011, according to the Ministry of Knowledge Economy.

The annual figure marks a significant recovery from a 9.7 percent on-year drop posted in the first nine months of last year.

“Orders for both power-generation plants, and oil and gas development plants grew on increasing investments and growing demands amid high oil prices, but the political unrest and resulting delay of orders in the Middle East, which is the country’s largest market for industrial plants, led to an overall drop,” the ministry said.

Industrial plants include both inland and offshore facilities, such as desalinization facilities and offshore drilling ships.

In 2012, orders from Middle East countries plunged 15.2 percent from a year earlier to $20.9 billion with orders from North American countries also slumping 10.4 percent to $11.2 billion.

Orders from Asian and African countries, on the other hand, respectively surged 17.9 percent and 32.1 percent on-year to $17.7 billion and $5.4 billion, in that order.

The ministry said the global market for industrial plants is expected to show a slow growth in 2013 as oil prices will become more stabilized, which in turn will likely lead to more cautious investment in the energy sector.

The world market for industrial plants is expected to grow a little over 5 percent from $989 billion in 2012 to about $1.04 trillion this year, according to the ministry.

However, it said overseas orders for South Korea’s industrial plants will likely grow over 8 percent on-year to $70 billion, partly on growing demands from Asian countries.

“By region, the Asian market will show the most definite growth trend while, by type, power-generation plants are expected to show the largest growth on increasing global production,” it said. (Yonhap News)