Society

Pandemic leads to Japan land prices falling for 1st time in 6 yrs

Mar 23 (Kyodo) - The average price of land in Japan fell for the first time in six years due to declining demand for urban commercial land spurred by the novel coronavirus pandemic, the government said Tuesday.

Land in all categories, including residential and industrial, fell 0.5 percent from a year earlier as of Jan. 1., compared with a 1.4 percent rise a year earlier.

All-category land prices in the three largest metropolitan areas of Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya slipped 0.7 percent from the previous year, while rural land prices dipped 0.3 percent. The land ministry said the effects of the pandemic on land prices were "relatively small" in rural areas.

Of Japan's 47 prefectures, 39 saw commercial land prices decline, while residential land prices dropped in 38 prefectures, according to the annual government survey covering some 26,000 locations.

A recovery was seen in land prices in the second half of 2020 when the spread of the virus in Japan subsided. But a full-scale recovery is unlikely in the near future as Tokyo and some other areas were under a second pandemic-necessitated state of emergency from early January to Sunday.

Source: ANNnewsCH

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