Hyundai Engineering & Construction Co., Korea’s largest builder, said Tuesday that it has posted record high sales last year of over 10 trillion won ($ 8.6 billion), up 7.8 percent from 2009, on strong overseas orders.

Earnings rose 19 percent on-year to 544.8 billion won in 2010, the firm said, thanks to gains from equity investments. Operating profit surged 39.5 percent to 584.3 billion won.

“Hyundai Engineering managed to achieve its best ever performance last year despite the sluggish local construction economy and consequent lagging records shown by other major builders,” a Hyundai Engineering official said.

Such a result is mainly attributable to large-scale overseas projects ― won since 2009 ― having been reflected in sales, the firm said. Increased operating profit resulted from reduced costs for overseas projects, it added.

The amount of new orders for the builder in 2010 marked a record high of 18.35 trillion won, up 16.9 percent from the previous year. As of the end of last year, Hyundai Engineering had 48.5 trillion won worth of order backlogs that will take about four years to complete, the company said.

The builder also said that its debt ratio fell to 152.3 percent at the end of last year from 167.4 percent a year ago. As of the end of 2010, Hyundai Engineering had 955.5 billion won in debt and 1.41 trillion won in cash, the company said.

Meanwhile, the builder had a positive outlook for this year as well, saying that sales and operating profit are expected to grow by over 20 percent and 30 percent, respectively.

It has won orders for a 360 megawatt-combined cycle power plant in Bangladesh and a multi-purpose building for offices and hotel in Singapore in January.

By Koh Young-aah (youngaah@heraldcorp.com)