MARKET INSIGHT | EAST AND SOUTHEAST ASIA
In South Korea, growth is expected to be
supported by investments in manufacturing facilities together with government initiatives boosting the semiconductor sector and hydrogen production. In parallel, Korea’s industrial strategy increasingly integrates digital infrastructure and AI. The government plans to invest $7.2bn to become one of the world’s top three AI powers by developing AI-related infrastructure, with around $1.9bn earmarked to integrate AI across key sectors such as robotics, semiconductors and shipbuilding. These priorities tend to support demand not only for factories, but also for supporting data and compute infrastructure, R&D facilities and highly resilient power and cooling systems. In a major long-range signal to the market, in December 2025, the South Korean government
announced a $502bn long-term investment strategy to accelerate development of semiconductor infrastructure through 2047. The plan aims to transform the country from a memory-centric producer into a comprehensive chip powerhouse. It includes a target to construct 10 new manufacturing plants across the country by 2047 and to establish a new industrial belt connecting Gwangju, Busan and Gumi. This kind of multi-decade programme typically stimulates not only direct construction spending, but also the development of enabling infrastructure – power transmission and substations, water supply and treatment, transportation links and specialised housing and amenities to support workforce needs in industrial clusters. Projects in the execution and pre-execution stages account for 58.9% of projects in East Asia,
totalling $908.4bn in value, indicating a larger share of near-term delivery. By value, South Korea represents 47.8% of the regional pipeline, followed by China (43.5%) and Taiwan (4.7%). Projects in Japan, Mongolia and Hong Kong collectively account for the remaining ~4%. This maturity profile implies that capacity and supply-chain constraints – particularly in electrical infrastructure, cleanrooms and specialist labour – may be more immediate in East Asia. Overall, the East and Southeast Asia industrial construction outlook remains positive but increasingly differentiated: East Asia anchors the region’s most complex technology projects and late-stage delivery, while Southeast Asia offers faster growth and expanding breadth, provided that power, permitting and capability constraints can be addressed.
East Asia – Industrial construction, Projected spending value by stage ($M)
300,000 250,000 200,000 150,000 100,000 50,000 0
2024 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029 Pre-planning Planning Pre-execution Execution Construction complete Note: based on assumption that all projects proceed as planned and that spending is evenly distributed during the construction phase. East Asia – Industrial construction project pipeline Project type ($M) 2030
0
200,000
400,000
600,000
800,000
1,000,000
1,200,000 Manufacturing plants Chemical and pharmaceutical plants Waste processing plants Metal and material production and processing plants
East Asia – Industrial construction project pipeline Funding mode by top country (% of total) Country
South Korea China
Taiwan Japan
Mongolia Hong Kong 42 | October 2026 |
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Private 99.6% 83.9% 98.8% 89.5% 2.6%
16.1%
Public 0.4%
14.3% 0.9%
10.5% 0.5%
83.9%
Public/Private 0.1% 1.8% 0.3% -
96.9% -
1,400,000
1,600,000
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