Officially Announced Land Price Up 105% in 5 Years

Officially announced land price has grown four times faster than the real land price for the past five years under the Roh Moo-hyun government, putting a heavier tax burden on people.

According to the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime on Friday, officially announced land price has annually increased 10.1-18.9 percent from 2004 to 2008. The accumulated growth rate for the past five years is 105.1 percent. On the other hand, real land price has annually increased 3.43 to 5.62 percent over the same period and the accumulated growth rate stands at 23.7 percent.

The total amount of officially announced land price in Korea surpassed 3,000 trillion won this year to reach 3,226 trillion won, up 10.1 percent or 315 trillion won from last year’s 2,911 trillion won.

By region, Seoul with 1,018 trillion won accounted for 31.6 percent of the total amount, followed by Gyeonggi Province with 931 trillion won and Incheon with 186 trillion won. In sum, the Seoul metropolitan area claims 66.2 percent of the total amount of officially announced land price.

Among all the cities and provinces, the amount of officially announced land price has surged the most in Incheon, where it has grown 17.61 percent, followed by Seoul (12.36 percent), Gyeonggi Province (10.87 percent) and Ulsan (9.37 percent).

By district and small city, the Seo-district of Incheon where the new city of Geomdan has been established has experienced the most dramatic growth with 31.74 percent, followed by 21.91 percent in Seoul’s Yongsan-district that has recently been under development. Incheon’s Dong-district (19.45 percent) and Gyeonggi Province’s Siheung (18.08 percent) have also experienced rapid growth.

mint4a@donga.com