By Jane Han
Staff Reporter
Foreign-owned land in South Korea has spiked since the government lifted regulations banning non-Koreans from buying land 11 years ago, according to a government data, Sunday.
Foreigners currently own 215.9 square kilometers of land here, which is up more than four times compared to the 50.9 square kilometers of space they possessed in 1998, data submitted to ruling Grand National Party lawmaker Jung Hee-soo by the National Assembly's Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs Committee showed.
Foreigners' land ownership has consistently increased since 1998, when the government began allowing them to purchase land here. Foreigners are defined as either foreign nationals, ethnic Koreans with foreign citizenship, joint South Korean-foreign businesses and foreign-owned companies.
Since the regulations were eased, foreigners have flocked to the country for real estate purchases, to build houses and factories.
Japanese, Chinese and other Asian nationals were the biggest buyers a decade ago, making up nearly 60 percent of new purchases, but recent transactions show that Americans are now the No. 1 buyers.
The report shows that demand for land on Jeju Island was the highest with the number of land transactions soaring almost 790 percent from 132 to 1,174 since 1998.
Gangwon and Gyeongsang provinces came next with the number of purchases rising 755 and 690 percent, respectively.
Meanwhile, the number of new transactions was comparatively fewer in the Seoul and Gyeonggi areas with foreign purchases increasing 10 percent, according to the data. Foreign-owned areas had accounted for 32.5 percent of the land in the Seoul and Gyeonggi regions, but the ratio has dropped to less than 19 percent.
The amount of land acquired here by individual buyers is on a continuous rise, but purchases made by foreign businesses are seeing a moderate drop, which implies that more real estate buyers are in for investment purchases.
``It is important to ensure that red tape is removed for foreign buyers,'' said Jung. ``But it is also important that investors are not buying only for speculative purposes.''
jhan@koreatimes.co.kr
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