Turkey was second only to China in the number of contractors in the Top 250 Global Contractors List for 2017, prepared by the Engineering News Record (ENR).
ENR, an international construction industry magazine, prepares the list based on the companies' income through overseas activities. A total of 46 Turkish companies were named in the 2017 list, the same as in the previous year.
The top 250 international contractors reported almost $482.4 billion in contracting revenue last year from projects outside their home countries. The amount was up 3.1 percent, from $468.12 billion, in 2016. This rise comes after three straight years of revenue declines among the Top 250, the magazine said.
China topped the list, while the U.S. ranked third with 36 companies, the Turkish Contractors Association (TMB) said in a statement.
Despite the downsizing in the global contracting sector in recent years, the number of Turkish firms on the ENR list rose from 40 to 46 in 2016. The figure was unchanged in 2017.
Though Turkey maintained its performance and ranked second in 2017, when the international contracting market again saw an upward trend, there was a slight decrease in market share.
While the market share of Turkish companies stood at 3.8 percent in 2013, it reached 4.3 percent, 4.6 percent and 5.5 percent in 2014, 2015 and 2016, respectively. It was at 4.8 percent last year, the data showed.
TMB President Mithat Yenigün said that the construction sector's business volume abroad - around $9.2 billion - in the first half of this year was promising.
He said that the local companies carried out projects worth around $25 to $30 billion between 2012 and 2015. "This volume declined to $14-$15 billion in the 2016-2017 period due to geopolitical developments, plummeting oil prices and the diplomatic crisis experienced with Russia," he said.
Yenigün added that the volume of projects realized abroad could again reach $20 billion this year when the normalization of ties with Russia and opportunities in potential markets, particularly Sub-Saharan Africa, are taken into consideration.
He also noted that their most important target was to increase the Turkish contractors' global share to 7 percent, which corresponds to $50 billion in business volume annually, by the 2030s.
