Overseas plant orders won by South Korean firms grew 1.2 percent in the first half from a year earlier due to better-than-expected demand from Middles Eastern countries, a government report showed Tuesday.

For the first six months of this year, South Korean firms received overseas plant orders worth 28.6 billion U.S. dollars, up 1.2 percent from the same period of last year, according to the Ministry of Knowledge Economy.

The overseas orders were originally forecast to reduce in the first half due to delayed orders from some Middle East countries and the scheduled large orders that concentrated in the second half, the ministry said.

However, 13.6 billion dollars worth of orders, which account for around half of the first-half total, were placed only at June, helping the orders top the results of last year, the ministry noted.

By region, orders from Middle East contracted 29.3 percent on- year to 9.98 billion dollars in the first half, but the figure was larger than earlier forecast.

Orders from Asia surged 192.2 percent to 10.2 billion dollars over the cited period, and those from the African region expanded 30.5 percent to 693 million dollars. Orders from the Americas grew 20.2 percent to 5.34 billion dollars, but those from Europe retreated 57.6 percent to 2.42 billion dollars.

By facility type, orders for petrochemical facilities soared 109.1 percent on-year to 3.93 billion dollars in the first half, and those for industrial plants jumped 54.9 percent to 2.12 billion dollars.

For the first six months of this year, orders for oil & gas processing facilities and power & desalination plants reached 6.94 billion dollars and 6.54 billion dollars each, up 3.7 percent and 7.9 percent from a year earlier, but orders for offshore plants declined 25.3 percent to 8.87 billion dollars.

The ministry said that it will achieve the goal of receiving plants orders worth 70 billion dollars in 2012 if the solid trend of the first half continues in the second half, but it noted that the persistent European fiscal crisis will serve as uncertainties over the future plant order environment.