South Korea’s global competitiveness in the transportation and construction service sectors remains solid despite the recent economic downturn triggered by eurozone woes and sluggish growth among many industrialized economies, a government report showed Sunday.

The finance ministry said that in the nine months of this year, the surplus in the transportation industry reached $7.3 billion, up $1.2 billion from the same time period in 2010, in the latest service sector balance sheet report.

It said of the total, ship-related freight handling was in the black by $5.6 billion while the size of the surplus generated by South Korean airline companies hit $1.7 billion.

The country’s transportation surplus, which hit $8.0 billion in 2008, plunged to just $5.2 billion in the following years when the worldwide economy was rocked by the U.S. Lehman Brothers collapse.

Numbers rebounded to $9.2 billion last year on the strength of the global economic recovery.

For 2011, Seoul said the transportation surplus may not reach last year’s level due to the problems facing many eurozone countries and the United States that is hurting overall trade volume.

In the construction sector, the finance ministry said the surplus reached $8.1 billion in the January-September period for a gain of $2.2 billion from a year earlier.

“The increase can be attributed to the record-high building orders secured by local construction and engineering companies last year,” it said.

The ministry, in charge of the country’s economic policies, claimed that both the transportation and construction sectors were able to post growth this year because they have been able to improve competitiveness through competition with foreign rivals.

The report, meanwhile, showed Asia’s fourth-largest economy posting deficits in travel, tourism and intellectual property right areas that offset any gains in transportation and construction.

The country has consistently reported a deficit in the service sector from 2000 onwards with last year’s total hitting $11.2 billion. For 2012, the balance was in the red by $4.5 billion as of late September. 

(Yonhap News)