Japan's land prices up 1.4%

Japan's land prices grew for a fifth straight year in 2019, helped by foreign tourism and low interest rates with some regions posting their best gains since the country's property crash of the early 1990s. A boom in tourism has been pushing up land prices especially among destinations popular with foreign visitors such as northern Hokkaido, southern Okinawa and Japan's ancient capital of Kyoto. Prices rose 1.4%, the fastest gain since 2008, the survey showed. Despite the rise, the coronavirus has clouded the outlook as the outbreak caused a tourism slump, supply chain disruptions and consumer spending damages, raising risks of a recession. The survey was conducted before the global coronavirus became a pandemic in the first quarter of 2020, so the results did not reflect the hit to prices from the virus, an official of the land ministry said.