Land Owned by Foreigners 17.2 times Bigger than Yeoeuido

It was found that foreigners own real estate 17.2 times the size of Yeoeuido Island with a value of more than 20 trillion won. The Ministry of Construction and transportation announced Friday that as of the end of June, real estate owned by foreigners amount to 146.6 million㎡, 17 times the size of Yeoeuido Island which is at 8.5 million ㎡.

This is a 2.5 % increase from 143.09 ㎡ at the end of March and a 2.7 % increase from 44.36 million ㎡ at the end of the last year. The foreign ownership of real estate, which was only 37.96 million ㎡ at the end of 1997, has been on a steady increase to 50.91 ㎡ in 1998, 113.07 million ㎡ in 2000 and 142.86 million ㎡ in 2002 due to the opening of the real estate market in June, 1998.

But the year-on-year growth rate has been slowing from 34.1% in 1998 to 37.4% in 2000 and 5.1 % in 2002.

Jae-Seong Hwang jsonhng@donga.com