Overseas orders for industrial plants clinched by South Korean builders so far this year are down by nearly half from a year earlier, a report showed Thursday, suggesting an apparent failure by local companies to adapt to changes in the global market.

Local builders have so far bagged $17.06 billion worth of orders between Jan. 1 and Aug. 15, down more than 40 percent from the same period last year, according to the report compiled by the Korea Economic Research Institute.

The report attributed the drop to local firms' failure to meet changing demands in the global market.

"The problem is that the number of investment-development projects has been on the rise recently while the portion of such projects in those won by our companies remains very low," it said.

In 2015, overseas plant orders won by South Korean builders came to $46.1 billion, down 30.1 percent from a year earlier, the report said.

Such a drop came despite a 4-percent on-year expansion in the overall size of the global market for industrial plants, which was worth $8.8 trillion in 2015.

"More specifically, the country must work to increase the portion of investment-development projects to 10 percent of all overseas orders over the next five years. To this end, the country must expand its support funds for overseas construction projects to $6 billion from the current $2.39 billion," it said. (Yonhap)