This Year’s Public Construction Orders Total 38.1 Trillion Won... "Over 60% in the First Half"

[Asia Economy (Daejeon) Reporter Jeong Il-woong] The scale of public construction orders this year is expected to reach 38.1 trillion won. Of this, the goal is to place more than 60% of the orders early in the first half of the year.

On the 20th, the Public Procurement Service announced the aggregated new public construction order plans for central administrative agencies, local governments, and public institutions for this year.

The order plans are compiled by aggregating order information entered into the Korea ON-line E-Procurement System (KONEPS) by each institution according to contract-related laws. This year's aggregate (38.1 trillion won) increased by 14.6% compared to the previous year and is the largest scale since the Public Procurement Service began compiling statistics.

By institution type, public institutions plan to place orders worth 22.7 trillion won, an increase of 6 trillion won (36%) compared to the previous year.

This accounts for nearly 60% of the total aggregate. The increase in public institution orders is analyzed to be partly due to the rise in new large-scale SOC projects such as highways and railroads. For example, this year, Korea Expressway Corporation plans to place new orders worth 6.1 trillion won, and the Korea Rail Network Authority plans 4.6 trillion won worth of new orders.

On the other hand, the order scale of central administrative agencies and local governments decreased by 14.2% and 4.2%, respectively, compared to the previous year, due to a decline in new orders for road facilities and educational facilities.

The Public Procurement Service plans to place early orders for projects worth 23.2 trillion won (more than 60% of the total) in the first half of this year.

However, for public institutions, large SOC orders such as highways and railroads are concentrated in the second half of the construction schedule, so the proportion of orders in the first half is expected to be 47.7%. SOC projects scheduled for the second half include six highway construction projects worth 4.7 trillion won and two railroad subgrade construction projects worth 2.4 trillion won.

Kang Sung-min, Director of the Facility Project Bureau at the Public Procurement Service, said, “As a global economic downturn and domestic construction market slowdown are expected, we urge construction companies to actively utilize the public construction order information provided on KONEPS.” He added, “The Public Procurement Service plans to actively support the government's early fiscal execution by offering up to a 10% discount on procurement fees when contract requests are made in the first half of the year, shortening announcement periods, and expediting contract procedures.”

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