• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.75-83
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• 2008

In the previous comparative studies of international competitiveness conducted before 2003, Korean construction productivity had been estimated to be lower (or poor) than that of developed countries such as US, UK, and Japan. However, the amount of international contracts Korean has won increased substantially, and Korean construction has progressed with creating two skyscrapers such as Petronas Tower and Burj Dubai. At this point we need to reevaluate what we are capable of. In this paper, we evaluated international competitiveness of our construction industry comparing to advanced countries by analyzing labor productivity. For evaluating construction competitiveness we measured labor productivity using the value of construction work in US dollar per hour based on domestic and foreign statistical data and analyzing completion days per a story and the ratio of underground floors to ground floors of buildings in Korea and Japan. As a result, although our construction productivity is not yet competitive with the US and Japan yet, we excel the UK.