Construction contracts top 74 trillion won in Q1 on semiconductor, data center boom

The value of construction contracts in the first quarter of this year exceeded 74 trillion won ($48.1 billion), rising about 23 percent from the same period last year. The private sector, driven by semiconductor production facilities and data centers, reached 49 trillion won — a far steeper increase than the public sector.

South Korea's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport released its first-quarter 2026 construction contract statistics on Friday, showing total contracts of 74.1 trillion won, up 23.4 percent from a year earlier.

Breaking down by sector, the public sector recorded 25.1 trillion won, up 5.0 percent from the same period last year, while the private sector reached 49 trillion won, up 35.6 percent over the same period. Public-sector growth was driven by civil engineering and industrial facility projects, including a power plant in Pocheon and port development at Busan. The private sector's sharp rise was fueled by new-industry investment in semiconductor production facilities and data centers.

By construction type, civil engineering — including industrial facilities and landscaping — rose 35.8 percent year-on-year to 29 trillion won, boosted by growth in private industrial facilities. Building construction climbed 16.6 percent to 45.1 trillion won, driven in part by private-sector factory scale-up projects.

Within civil engineering, pure civil works totaled 17 trillion won, up 6.0 percent on-year, while industrial facilities reached 11 trillion won, surging 159.0 percent. Landscaping also grew 6.0 percent over the same period to 1 trillion won.

Among firms ranked by size, the top 1–50 companies contracted 37.7 trillion won, up 40.2 percent on-year; those ranked 51–100 recorded 4.5 trillion won, up 0.3 percent; firms ranked 101–300 posted 5.3 trillion won, up 6.8 percent; those ranked 301–1,000 logged 6.5 trillion won, up 24.9 percent; and all other firms accounted for 20.1 trillion won, up 8.4 percent. Larger companies posted proportionally greater gains in contract value.

By project location, the Greater Seoul metropolitan area accounted for 39.2 trillion won, up 41.8 percent from a year ago, while regions outside the metropolitan area recorded 34.9 trillion won, up 7.8 percent.

Looking at the past decade of construction contract data, the quarterly total peaked at 82.7 trillion won in the second quarter of 2022 before falling to 45.5 trillion won in the third quarter of 2023, after which it has been on a recovery trend. The first-quarter figure this year stands at 89.6 percent of that 10-year high.

The full construction contract statistics are now available on the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport's statistics portal.