• Proceedings of the Korean Institute Of Construction Engineering and Management
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• autumn
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• pp.306-310
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• 2002

Agreements such as the Uruguay Round and the New Round have dramatically changed international construction markets. The globalization of the construction industry provides tremendous opportunities for construction industry, while it generates the complex skeins of risks to contractors wllo would like to expand into new foreign markets. According to ENR, recently about $13.9\%$ of contractors that entered international construction markets have experienced loss in projects and furthermore, their average profits have also declined continuously. Accordingly, contractors need a strategic risk management system for assessing various risks and improving Profitability for overseas construction projects. This paper discusses the long-term trend of profitability performed by Korean contractors in international construction markets during the last 35 years. Then, it identifies the key factors that affect the profitability significantly through the structured surveys from 59 actual overseas projects. These factors can be used for developing a risk management system for international construction project.

• THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE & LAW REVIEW
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• v.58
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• pp.215-236
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• 2013

It is quite true that the more Korean contractors receive overseas contracts, the more they need guarantees. The top market for them is the Middle East countries, consisting of more than the half of the total amount awarded last year and the trend is increasing as well. The problem, however, is that employers in these countries are reluctant to use international rules for guarantee such as URDG or ISP98 and easily make unfair callings. However, Korean contractors(applicants), especially small and medium sized enterprises(SMEs) tend to hurriedly enter a contract without looking into its contents as well as guarantees. They do not realize the importance of the guarantees until they receive callings from the employers(beneficiaries). Being independent from the underlying contracts, guarantee is the equivalent to cash in that it usually does not require any proof of demand when calling and the guarantor should make a payment within usually 5 business days after the request. It is often observed these days that several Korean SMEs go bankrupt due to liquidity risks after receiving unfair callings from employers in the Middle East countries. In retrospect, some cases could be obviated if contractors were a little more careful in checking the contents of a guarantee at the time of concluding a contract. For example, there is one case where the underlying contract includes a reduction clause in the Advance Payment bond and the guarantee does not have that clause. In the end, the Korean contractor had to take the whole burden of the bond amount though it had finished 81% of the project. Nobody could argue that contractors should take a full responsibility if they fail in their obligations. However, the employer's wrongful callings need to be prevented in the first place, if possible. As there shouldn't be a case where one party is at a disadvantage against the other like the case mentioned above, useful insight is being sought to minimize unfair calling risks for the benefit of the applicant. First, the applicant should carefully look into every detail of the potential guarantee before signing a contract, heeding especially that there is a reduction clause in the AP bond. Second, the governing principles for guarantee should be the ones that are internally used such as URDG758 that is objective in terms of callings given that, for example, it specifies that the requirement for a supporting statement when making a demand is a default rule. It is also recommended that the form of guarantees be the standard demand guarantee. Third, parties involved in issuing guarantees are advised to understand international rules for guarantee like URDG758 and ISP98 and to play a key role in guiding SME contractors in Korea so that they can protect themselves from possible wrongful callings, particularly from employers in the Middle East countries. I hope this study would give a wake-up call for Korean SMEs wishing to do business in the Middle East countries and remind them of the importance of guarantee itself and its governing principles.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.134-144
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• 2010

In China, the enhancement of water services has become the most crucial issue confronted with the rapid urbanization and industrialization process. A huge financial gap to meet the demand for water infrastructure and need for adopting advanced operation technology precipitated the rapid growth of PPP over the last 10 years. Diverse schemes of PPP such as TOT, Divestiture, and Management Contract and Lease have been practiced. Local governments and private investors/operator have adjusted their objectives and strategies to avoid potential pitfalls behind BOT projects in China. However, current academic research outcomes do not properly reflect important issues of BOT projects or related case studies in China. This limitation has brought in the lack of assessment of important risks and success factors required for the improvement of the body of risk management. In this regard, this study uses the market analysis method to identify major schemes of PPP water projects and conducts case studies on five PPP projects to identify key risk and success factors in association with each different scheme. It is expected that the risk and success factors identified from the cases will be used as reference to Korean companies which plan to enter the Chinese water market.

• Strategy21
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• s.37
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• pp.104-143
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• 2015

China's new grand strategy, the "One Belt, One Road Initiative" (also Belt Road Initiative, or BRI) has two primary components: Chinese President Xi Jinping announced the "Silk Road Economic Belt" in September 2013 during a visit to Kazakhstan, and the "21^st Century Maritime Silk Route Economic Belt" in a speech to the Indonesian parliament the following month. The BRI is intended to supply China with energy and new markets, and also to integrate the countries of Central Asia, the Association of Southeast Asia Nations (ASEAN), and the Indian Ocean Region - though not Northeast Asia - into the "Chinese Dream". The project will be supported by the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), due to open in 2016 with 57 founding members from all around the world, and China has already promised US$ 50 billion in seed funding. China's vision includes networks of energy pipelines, railways, sea port facilities and logistics hubs; these will have obvious commercial benefits, but also huge geopolitical significance. China seems to have two distinct aims: externally, to restore its historical sphere of influence; and internally, to cope with income inequalities by creating middle-class jobs through enhanced trade and the broader development of its economy. In South Korea, opinion on the BRI is sharply polarized. Economic and industrial interests, including Korea Railroad Corporation (KORAIL), support South Korean involvement in the BRI and closer economic interactions with China. They see how the BRI fits nicely with President Park Geun-hye's Eurasia Initiative, and anticipate significant commercial benefits for South Korea from better connections to energy-rich Russia and the consumer markets of Europe and Central Asia. They welcome the prospect of reduced trade barriers between China and South Korea, and of improved transport infrastructure, and perceive the political risks as manageable. But some ardently pro-US pundits worry that the political risks of the BRI are too high. They cast doubt on the feasibility of implementing the BRI, and warn that although it has been portrayed primarily in economic terms, it actually reveals a crucial Chinese geopolitical strategy. They are fearful of China's growing regional dominance, and worried that the BRI is ultimately a means to supplant the prevailing US-led regional security structure and restore the Middle Kingdom order, with China as the only power that matters in the region. According to this view, once China has complete control of the regional logistics hubs and sea ports, this will severely limit the autonomy of China's neighbors, including South Korea, who will have to toe the Chinese line, both economically and politically, or risk their own peace and prosperity.

• Journal of Climate Change Research
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.115-131
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• 2011

Out of all the possible actions that can be taken to respond to greenhouse gas reduction, including development of greenhouse gas reduction technology, infrastructure, actions to improve energy saving and efficiency, and offset with carbon emission reductions (CERs), this study shall focus on the investment on CERs. This study will take a look at risks involved with investing in CERs such as UN registration refusal risk and CERs price fluctuation, and will design risk management model which shall be verified. The goal of this paper is to provide optimized CERs investment strategies for different types of investors, such as general trading companies seeking for investment opportunities and financial companies with plans for green products development and investment by preparation for carbon market. It is expected that the global competitiveness of domestic financial companies shall be improved by taking actions on carbon market instead of previous passive response to climate change and that Korea, the number two Carbon Emissions supplier and number one derivatives market in terms of volume, shall be able to lead the worldwide carbon market.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Building Construction
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.121-128
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• 2021

Due to the increase of size and complexity of construction project, the frequency of serious accidents in construction industry has been increased. Especially, the proportion of accidents in formwork of building construction site is very high, and many previous studies have been conducted to preventing them in the viewpoint of the diverse approaches. However, their effectiveness on accidents prevention was poor, and as a result, it is limited to consider the potential risks because many workers and managers tend not to be concerned with unsafe factors in formwork. Therefore, in this study, a realistic and proactive way for analyzing these potential risks was proposed in the manner of quantitatively assessing the potentials resulted from the unsafe factors in formwork. To verify the applicability of the proposed methodology, group survey was carried out, and the results were compared with those of the traditional importance-performance analysis(hereafter IPA) technique. Through the use of the proposed methodology, unsafe factors that were not found in the IPA but have potential risk were identified. Eventually, this study is expected to contribute to the proactive prevention of construction serious disaster accidents in formwork by enabling a more efficient management.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.427-435
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• 2017

Korea's overseas construction awards reached US $750 bn for more than 50 years since it first entered the market in 1966. In particular, the company won US $540 bn over 10 years from 2007, achieving 72% of the total contracts. However, in recent two years, awarded amounts have decreased by 40% each year. The most significant decline is due to the impact of international oil prices, which have plummeted since end of 2014, as oil-producing nations, which are Korea's major target countries, are struggling to cancel or postpone infrastructure orders. In order to lessen the impact of raw material price fluctuations, the recent trend is that even countries with relatively loose government financing conditions are rapidly changing their ordering methods to investment development forms such as PPP. The Korean government and companies have been already preparing for this for several years, but they are still not doing so well. The main reason is the lack of understanding about the investment development type project, especially financing methods and the aggravated fear of exposing it to various risks due to the characteristics of the development project, which takes a long time to collect the investment. In this paper, I propose a more systematic solution to financial process and risk management, which is recognized as a obstructive factor for Korean companies, in line with the recent government-led establishment of overseas infrastructure development support organizations. I would like to serve as a investment guide.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.715-722
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• 2020

This paper proposes a design verification method based on system dynamics for offshore separation systems. Oil and gas separation systems are key components of offshore oil platforms; these systems determine the competitiveness of engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) projects, especially in terms of added value. However, previous research on design verification has been limited to the process and deliverables of design. To address this, the study aims to develop a comprehensive design verification method and the associated functions from the perspective of project management, for the entire project life-cycle of offshore structures. The proposed methodology for design verification is expected to contribute toward effective and detailed designs as well as improve the competitiveness of EPC companies in constructing of shore structures during the early design stages. We first analyzed the separation system of the FPSO using the design verification method adopted by advanced countries and compared it with the system dynamics process formalized as ISO 15288. Subsequently, a tailored process for the design verification of the offshore structure was derived. It is shown that the proposed design verification method can be applied to the front-end engineering design process of of shore structures. Moreover, it can contribute toward the successful performance of offshore projects in the future and also minimize design changes and critical risks during the construction of these offshore structures.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.7 no.8
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• pp.234-244
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• 2007

Both competent authorities and private entrepreneurs face plenty of risks when negotiating BTO(Build Transfer Operation) methods of PPI(Private Participations in Infrastructures) projects. Also, success and failure of projects largely depend on the concession agreement contract. In this study, for more efficient negotiation, major issues are examined, and quantitatively analyzed to find out not only the relationship but also the characteristics of which these issues share. Questionnaire research was conducted through both research and by experts who were divided into an ordering agency, design company and constructor. Characteristics of major issues were quantitatively analyzed using the Likert index method, ANOVA(ANalysis of VAriance) and AHP(Analytic Hierarchy Process) analysis. Case studies were examined in order to estimate construction cost, rates of return, government finance support, level of operation-revenues guarantees, estimating operational costs and usage fees. With these 6 items, relative priority, relative impression which is sensible to risk and extent of difficulty in presenting data which is objective were quantitatively analyzed by the ordering agency, design company and constructor groups. From the analysis, there were some similarities between the design company and constructor groups while there was less of similarities between the ordering agency and design company or constructor. The government is diversifying the methods of project promotion, and PPI project from infrastructure-centered to public culture facilities are being expand. The current study will provide not only supporting efficient negotiation but also revitalizing PPI projects.

• Geotechnical Engineering
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.17-32
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• 1998

The Bakun hydroelectric project includes the construction of a hydroelectric power plant with an installed capacity of 2,520MW and a power transmission system connecting to the existing transmission networks in Sarawak and Western Malaysia, The power station will consist of a 210m height concrete faced rockfill dam. During the construction of the dam and the power facilities the Balui river has to be diverted by three diversion tunnels with a length of some 1,400m each. The inner diameter of the tunnels is 12m and the tunnel width is 16m at the portal area. This paper describes the stability analysis and design methods for the open cut rock slopes in the inlet and outlet area of the diversion tunnels. The geotechnical parameters employed in stability calculations were given as a function of four. defined Rock Mass Types (RMT) which were based on RMR system from Bieniawski. The stability calculations procedure of the rock slopes are divided into two stages. In the first stage, it is calculated for the stability of each 'global' slope without any rock support and shotcrete system. In the second stage, it is calculated for each 'local'slope stability with berms and supported with rock bolts and shotcrete. The monitoring instrumentation was performed continuously and some of the design modification was carried out in order to increase the safety of failed area based on the unforeseen geological risks during the open cut excavation.