Yuchengco group’s construction arm EEI Corporation reported a 15 percent gain in unaudited consolidated net income for the first nine months of the year to P418.69 million from P362.93 million in the same period in 2008.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, the firm said this was achieved despite a 32 percent drop in consolidated revenues to P5.37 billion from P7.85 billion last year.

Revenues from local construction contracts and services, which comprise 83 percent of EEI’s revenues, declined 37 percent and 33 percent, respectively.

However, the firm’s overseas operations showed growth as seen in the 19 percent increase in equity in net earnings of associates and joint venture to P460.99 million from P387.82 million.

Consultancy fees earned from overseas operations, under other income account, leaped by 61 percent from P59.23 million in 2008 to P95.19 million in 2009.

EEI said 74 percent of its total manpower complement of 14,680 is currently deployed in its various overseas projects, particularly in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia through joint venture firm Al-Rushaid Construction Company (ARCC) in Qatar and New Caledonia.

As a result of the drop in production from domestic construction projects, EEI’s costs fell 37 percent to P4.15 billion from P6.58 billion in the comparative period last year.

Despite the weakness in domestic construction due to a slowdown in expansion by real estate firms and industrial corporations, EEI obtained domestic orders and contracts amounting to P3.62 billion or 67 percent higher than the P2.17 billion in the first nine months of 2008.

Backlog representing the value of workable balance of contracted domestic projects of EEI as of September this year was computed at P4.8 billion, a 50 percent increase from the P3.19 billion registered last year.

For its foreign projects, EEI’s 49 percent-owned ARCC acquired a $192-million contract with JGC Corporation for the Saudi Polymers project in KSA in March 2009. Orders backlog of ARCC stands at $265 million as of the end of September.