D  irector-General Park Min-woo for construction policy at the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs said in an interview with NewsWorld,  “The government strategies to help Korean builders explore new construction markets overseas including Central and South America, Central Asia, and Africa in an effort to reduce the heavy dependence on a number of key regions, most notably the Middle East.” “The strategy involves providing funds to small and medium-sized companies and the diversification of project portfolios to include water treatment facilities and plant construction projects such as nuclear power plants.” The following are excerpts from the  interview:

Question: What's the significance for our country’ s clinching over $501.3 billion worth of construction projects overseas as of June 14 this year?

Answer:  It is a great feat that we have achieved this since a Korean builder first clinched the Pathana-Narathiwat Highway in Thailand in 1965, the first overseas project for Korea.

The construction industry has always been there for the country to help its economy move forward by earning foreign exchange, particularly during the difficult times.

The Korean builders’ excellent workmanship and the keeping of their promised completion dates for projects has won huge trust in the international community, thereby boosting the nation’ s prestige.

The volume of overseas construction projects for Korean builders has been further rising with the arrival of the second construction boom in the Middle East as they continue to secure construction projects with the help of the government in a move to keep moving forward while the domestic construction market is in the doldrums.

The annual number of overseas construction projects won by Korean builders has outnumbered the exports of key products from Korea such as ships, autos, and chips since 2007. The value of overseas projects in 2006 won by Korean builders amounted to $16.5 billion versus exports of chips valued at $33.2 billion in 2006. But the situation changed the following year with total overseas construction projects coming to $39.8 billion against total auto exports of $34.5 billion.

The achievement appears doubly significant because it was the result of our construction companies and men biding their time in hot deserts, thick jungles, and other remote places to do their jobs well.

Q: Can you please introduce to us the government’s support policies for overseas builders?

A: As a result of the joint private sector-government overseas project-securing support team, whose activities included the invitation of project owners to Korea to establish friendly relations with them, our companies’ completion of projects to build harbors, roads, and other transportation infrastructure and their participation in municipal development and water resources projects have enabled them to land a number of huge projects overseas recently.

In Saudi Arabia, we dispatched a number of missions since the announcement of a plan to build 500,000 houses by the Saudi government costing some 70 trillion won, led by the Minister of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs in September 2011 and February 2012. We also invited the Saudi delegation, led by the Housing Minister, to Seoul in May to ask for special favors from them such as the exemption from the classification of builders and others so that Korean builders can reenter the Saudi housing construction market after 30 years.

In Saudi Arabia, any bidder in government construction projects is required to submit its classification as a builder and foreign builders are finding difficulty obtaining such classifications, as most of their projects have been outside the Arab country, which only recognizes the experiences of projects undertaken in its territory.

Most Korean builders who have been exempted from this classification have submitted their pre-qualification documents to the Saudi authority, which is scheduled to issue orders for the project after July.

A Korean market exploration delegation headed by a vice minister-level government official was dispatched to Malaysia on June 18 to secure various construction projects in the southeast Asian country and to call on the vice minister of the Energy, Water, and Green Technology Ministry, the finance minister, the chairman of the transportation corporation, and the president of a subway corporation in the host country in a bid to win orders related to a Malaysian subway line project worth 13 trillion won, a light electric rail line project worth 400 billion won, and other infrastructural construction projects. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Ministry of Environment hosted a forum for water on June 18 in Kuala Lumpur. Prime Minister Kim Hwang-sik sent a letter in support of the POSCO Consortium and the Samsung C&T Consortium in contention to win the light electric rail extension project for the Ampang Line in Malaysia on May 31.

A market exploration mission made of 40 government officials and executives of the construction firms, led by First Vice Minister Han Man-hee of the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs, went to Myanmar from June 19-20 to support Korean builders participation in the southeast Asian country’ s various infrastructure projects. The mission called on a bevy of high-ranking government officials including the construction minister, the transportation minister, the electricity minister, the governor of Yangon, and others to request their support for Korean builders to participate in some of the large SOC projects in Myanmar such as roads, railroads, airports, harbors, and hydropower plants and Yangon’ s modernization projects, among others.

President Lee Myung-bak promised Korea’ s intention to support Myanmar’ s economic development plans, and Korean firms’ investments in Myanmar’ s key SOC projects in such areas as manufacturing, agriculture, IT, and others, and their participation in such key infrastructural projects as hydropower plants, deep-sea harbors, roads, international airports, and other SOC sectors during the Korea-Myanmar Summit held on May 14 in Yangon. The Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs has been working on signing an MOU with the Myanmar government on the provision of an EDCF loan that the Myanmar government requested to build Hanthawadi Airport.

In Iraq, First Vice Minister Han Man-hee of the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs attended the ground-breaking ceremony for the Middle East country’ s 100,000 residential house construction project on May 29, which will be undertaken by Hanhwa E&C and will be the largest construction project that a Korean builder ever won overseas at $7.8 billion.

Vice Minister Han called on Iraqi Premier Nouri al Malaki to request his support for Korean firms’ participation in various Iraqi SOC projects in a bid to create friendly ties with the Iraqi government and to pave the way for Korean firms to do business in the Arab country.

Q: Please, inform our readers of the sustainable government policies for overseas construction projects for Korean builders.

A: The government has been providing all kinds of support to Korean firms operating overseas to win projects and will continue to do so in the future. The government first set up a global infrastructure support fund (GIF) amounting to 400 billion won to strengthen their financial capacity. The government has been conducting talks with the managers of wealth funds of the Middle East countries to jointly invest in third-country infrastructure projects. More specifically, the Korea Water Resources Corp. is in talks with the wealth funds of the Middle East to jointly invest in third-country water resources projects by jointly creating a fund as large as 1.5 trillion won. In March 2011, the Korean GIF signed an MOU with a wealth fund of Qatar to make joint investments in third-country projects. The Korean GIF also signed an MOU with the wealth fund of the UAE, Invest AD, on May 7 to make joint investments in third-country projects.

The government has expanded the number of professionals working on overseas construction projects from 2,500 to 3,500 annually this year and has also been conducting the OJT program to supplement the shortage of professional manpower for overseas construction for small and medium companies operating abroad.

The government has also been providing help for R&D activities to secure core technologies for plant construction and their localization with 36.7 billion won in funds for this year alone. The government provided a total of 143.4 billion won for the development of seawater softening technologies and further upgrading the LNG plant construction technologies from 2007 to 2011.

Q: What have been the strategies to diversify overseas construction markets?

A: The government has been spearheading the strategies to expand the overseas construction markets for Korean builders to Central and South America, Central Asia, and Africa and the development of investment-type construction projects abroad. The government has provided 2.2 billion won to construction firms to explore construction projects overseas last year and will give 3 billion won this year to secure construction projects in new overseas construction markets.

The government is in the middle of setting up strategies for Korean firms to secure water treatment projects, transportation infrastructure and green energy projects overseas. The government has decided to export the Four Major Rivers Restoration Project as a model for the water business for foreign countries under a strategy drawn up on May 23.