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Thursday, November 28, 2013

Construction sector’s economic situation in South Korea

Future outlook of construction sector in South Korea
In recent years, South Korea has suffered from economic turndown in the similar way as many other countries. According to Bank of Korea (2013), in Q1/2010 the GDP growth of South Korea, i.e. percentage change compared to previous year, was more than 9 %. Last year, at the lowest quarter it was 1.5%, while this year it has started to recover again: in Q3/2013 the GDP growth was 3.3 %. 

The similar slope can be seen in the construction sector. According to Bank of Korea (2013), the growth rate of construction sector, i.e. percentage change compared to previous year, has gradually increased from being -9.4% in Q1/2011 to 1.1 % in  Q1/2013 and 4.8 % in Q3/2013. 

However, when asked from the construction companies, they seem to think that construction sector is not yet going to recover from turndown this year or next year (Financial Times, 2013). In the FT article Daewoo Construction representative commented: 

“Orders in the sector for this year are expected to be reduced by more than Won10tn ($9.4bn) compared with last year’s Won101.5tn, and orders in the early part of next year are expected to be similar to this year” 

Key takeaways for our project
When looking at this from our project’s point of view, it seems that the South Korean construction sector is currently at halt - the number of construction orders is limited and might be even further reduced in the future. This could indicate that the competition from incumbent players in the “people flow” industry might be quite fierce towards construction companies.

Thus in this kind of economic situation, the possible marketing plan from us needs to be well analyzed and planned, in order to wisely select which customers to target, and how to position our products compared to the competitors. 

References
Bank of Korea (2013): http://www.bok.or.kr/eng/engMain.action (access 22.11.13)
Financial Times. (25.10.13). “South Korea Construction groups strike bearish tone”.  http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/99a95136-3d59-11e3-9928-00144feab7de.html#axzz2lUe432Ql (access 22.11.13)

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