Others are active in hotel, road and other big construction, notably in Botswana and South Africa.
ECONOMIST: Booming Chinese interest in Africa is not just about oil
Most big construction firms have already made themselves less vulnerable to a downturn by diversifying their activities.
ECONOMIST: Building firms are struggling to emerge from the recession
Big construction projects at Rutgers University and Cooper University Hospital are under way.
Just how many borrowers will be affected is unclear, but a handful of big construction companies, among others, are expected to go bust.
Anyone who has spent more than a week travelling around Japan quickly realises that the country is one big construction site.
This may be slowing big construction projects, since foreign donors and investors are reluctant to pour in the cash without more openness.
Big construction projects are good for the heavy and specialist truck industry, and better roads in emerging economies will eventually create new demand.
Nevertheless, its building arm makes it a more effective bidder on PFI contracts, which are the meat and drink of big construction firms in Britain.
ECONOMIST: Building firms are struggling to emerge from the recession
Other big construction groups like Carillion, Alfred McAlpine and Laing are reinventing themselves to take advantage of the PFI contracts as are service companies like Capita, Serco and Amey.
We can hope we just have a brush with one of these bio-eco-cyber-socio-quarkish blowouts, learn to pick up the pieces, and invest in rebuilding. (Think REITS, big construction firms such as Fluor , plus canned goods, bottled water and ammo.) The other choice is to privatize the solar system, pronto.
Towa Real Estate, a developer affiliated with the big Fujita construction firm, has asked Tokai Bank to do much the same.
It also plans to investigate Delta, a big Brazilian construction firm.
Sacyr was one of a trio of big Spanish construction companies that grabbed stakes in the country's biggest energy firms in the go-go days of 2006, near the height of Spain's property bubble.
Investors fear it will suffer big losses on construction and development loans in southern California and Nevada.
This time, say reactor vendors and big engineering and construction firms hoping to do the building, things will be different.
Big falls in construction output were a factor when the UK was last in recession in the first half of 2012.
Approvals to build new homes surged 43 percent between May and December last year, leaving a big pipeline of construction still to come.
In Australia the slowdown in housing did make a big dent in construction and consumer spending but this was masked by the commodity boom and exports to China.
He then cleared out the executive ranks, fixed the company's balance sheet and turned the company into one of the most profitable big engineering and construction firms in the world.
"December is a big month for construction because we've had really bad snow for the last two Decembers, so that may yet save us from a fractionally negative (GDP) reading, " he said.
The big cases, involving construction companies such as Aoki and Fujita, were highly unpopular.
The party also plans a big increase in the construction of government-subsidised housing.
That's driving a big gain in apartment construction and also pushing up rents.
And unemployment is now a big worry, as construction firms and estate agencies fall over themselves to lay off staff.
Of the big four, China Construction Bank is in the best shape.
The homebuilding industry shrank again, but at a slower rate than in previous quarters, and the dampening effect on the economy was partly offset by a big increase in the construction of commercial buildings.
Construction is not a big thing because no one is building anything.
CNN: Transcript of June 'CNN Money Summit: Money & Main St.'
Riverpark Farm, which will be officially unveiled to New Yorkers next month, occupies one of more than 600 stalled construction sites in the Big Apple alone.
FORBES: Meet Manhattan's Stalled Construction Site-Turned-Urban Farm
Families are close, but there's little work, so many people spend as long as two years away from home in the sweatshops of big Asian cities or in the construction sites of the Persian Gulf.
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