By 1988 emigrant remittances to Yugoslavia totaled over $4.5 billion (USD), and by 1989 remittances were $6.2 billion (USD), which amounted to over 19% of the world's total. A large portion of those remittances came from Yugoslav professional and skilled workers employed by Yugoslav engineering and construction firms with contracts abroad, including large infrastructure projects in the Middle East, Africa and Europe. In the early 1980s, Yugoslav firm Energoprojekt was building dams, roads and apartment houses in Iraq, Libya and Kuwait. But during the recession of the early 1980s many oil exporting countries reduced construction projects as oil prices fell. Increased competition from countries like South Korea offering less expensive labor, also contributed to a decline in Yugoslavia's booming engineering and construction export trade.