Land Owned by Foreigners
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said on December 4 that the area of Korean land owned by foreigners increased 0.3% (600,000 square meters) to 234.16 million square meters in the first half of 2017 from the previous year. The size accounts for 0.2% of the entire territory of Korea. However, its monetary value stood at 32.308 trillion won or US$2.9 billion (based on official land prices set by the government), down 1.4% from the end of last year. As of the end of last year, foreign-owned land in Korea valued at 32.38 trillion won.
Korean land owned by foreigners accounted for 2.6% of Korea’s entire land in 2012, 0.5% in 2013, 6.0% in 2014, 9.6% in 2015 and 2.3% in 2016. From 2014 to 2015, foreign ownership grew sharply but its growth rate has slowed down since 2016.
The size of areas owned by Chinese people stood at 1,713,900 square meters, which accounted for 7.3% of all foreign-owned land in Korea. Land owned by Americans totaled 190.78 million square meters, accounting for 50.9% of all foreign-owned land in Korea.
The size of foreign owned land on Jeju Island increased by 1.14 million square meters from the previous year, recording the highest growth in the nation. Jeju Island was followed by South Chungcheong Province (an increase of 520,000 square meters) and Daejeon City (an increase of 460,000 square meters). On the other hand, Gyeonggi Province recorded the biggest decline of 540,000 square meters.
The rate of year-on-year growth of foreign-owned land on Jeju Island hit 7.9% in 2013, 59.1% in 2014, and 31.2% in 2015. After hitting 2.8% in 2016, the rate increased to 5.7% in the first half of this year. The size of foreign-owned land on Jeju Island rose sharply until the year 2015 but crept down in 2016. In the first half of this year, the figure rose 5.7% (1.14 million square meters).
85% of the increase in foreign-owned land on Jeju Island is attributable to Chinese people. This year, Chinese people bought more than 970,000 square meters of land on Jeju Island.