Last Year's Construction Industry Sales Drop to 300 Trillion Won Range in One Year... Overseas Construction Plummets Due to COVID-19 Expansion

After Surpassing 400 Trillion Won for the First Time in 2019, Dropped to 300 Trillion Won Range in Just One Year

On October 5th, construction workers are seen undergoing COVID-19 testing at a 'Mobile Screening Clinic' set up at a construction site in Seongdong-gu, Seoul. Photo by Hyunmin Kim kimhyun81@

[Sejong=Asia Economy Reporter Moon Chaeseok] Due to the domestic spread of COVID-19, construction industry sales in South Korea decreased to the 300 trillion won level last year after a year. Although sales surpassed 400 trillion won for the first time in 2019, they fell back to the 300 trillion won range. The sharp decline in overseas construction sales of major companies had a significant impact.

According to the '2020 Construction Industry Survey Results (Corporate Performance Section)' released by Statistics Korea on the 16th, last year's domestic construction industry sales amounted to 396.9 trillion won, a 1.1% (4.4 trillion won) decrease compared to the previous year. Sales had surpassed 400 trillion won for the first time since statistics began in 1974 in 2019, but fell back to the 300 trillion won level.

The sales of the top 100 construction companies decreased by 5.8% to 137.8 trillion won compared to the previous year, which had a major impact. In particular, these companies' overseas construction sales sharply dropped by 27% to 19.9 trillion won.

By industry, comprehensive construction sales amounted to 243.4 trillion won, down 0.8% (1.9 trillion won). Within comprehensive construction, civil engineering sales increased by 7.7 trillion won, but building construction sales decreased by 9.06 trillion won, resulting in an overall sales decline of nearly 2 trillion won. Specialty construction sales amounted to 153.5 trillion won, down 1.6% (2.5 trillion won) from the previous year.

Value added, which is the amount remaining after deducting direct costs such as raw material costs, repair costs, and outsourced construction costs from construction sales, was 130 trillion won, up 1.1% (1.4 trillion won) from the previous year. The value-added growth rate was 2.6% in 2011 and 2019 but fell to about half that level.

Last year, the number of construction companies increased by 4.7% (3,718 companies) to 82,567, marking eight consecutive years of growth since 2013. The number of construction workers was 1.671 million, down 2.2% (38,000 people) from the previous year. Sales per construction company were 4.807 billion won, and the number of workers per company was 20.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.