Foreign land ownership rises 3.9%

Foreign land ownership in Korea grew in 2009 from a year earlier as ethnic Koreans and joint entities partly owned by foreigners increased their property purchases, a report showed yesterday.

According to the report by the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs, foreigners owned a total of 218.45 million square meters (53,980 acres) of land in Korea at the end of last year, up 3.9 percent from 2008.

The ownership is equivalent to 0.2 percent of the nation’s total size, the report said. The value was estimated at 30.75 trillion won ($26.7 billion).

The report defined foreigners as including foreign nationals, ethnic Koreans with foreign citizenship, joint Korean-foreign businesses and foreign-owned companies.

Ethnic Koreans with foreign citizenship last year purchased the largest amount of land, 11.97 million square meters, followed by foreign nationals and joint entities, which bought 2.93 million square meters and 1.59 million square meters of land, respectively, the report showed. Yonhap