1.7 Times Yeouido Area in 9 Years... Nationalization of Japanese-Owned Property

[Asia Economy (Daejeon) Reporter Jeong Il-woong] Over the past nine years, the land nationalized after reclaiming properties owned by Japanese individuals during the Japanese colonial period has been calculated to be 1.7 times the size of Yeouido.

The Public Procurement Service announced on the 10th that since 2012, it has been investigating about 52,000 parcels of property suspected to be Japanese-owned inherited assets and is currently conducting a nationalization project on about 10,000 parcels excluding the nationalization targets (about 42,000 parcels).

Inherited assets refer to properties owned by Japanese individuals, Japanese corporations, or Japanese institutions that were transferred to the government of the Republic of Korea after the U.S. military government period.

Additionally, Japanese-named properties were extracted by cross-referencing land presumed to be owned by Japanese individuals identified by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and the Japanese registry of residents in Korea from the National Archives of Korea (including external reports).

Based on its own investigation and supporting documents from related organizations, the Public Procurement Service has succeeded in transferring 490㎡ (6,162 parcels) of the approximately 10,000 parcels to the state as of last month. In terms of property value, this amounts to over 139 billion KRW based on official land prices.

Currently, procedures are underway to nationalize 1,354 parcels targeted for nationalization, and the Public Procurement Service plans to actively pursue nationalization of additional parcels discovered through individual reports in the future.

For real estate still registered under Japanese-style names in official registries, a ‘Project to Erase Japanese Names from Official Registries’ is being promoted.

Last year, a large-scale joint maintenance project at the government-wide level was launched targeting about 104,000 parcels of real estate still bearing Japanese-style names, and a basic survey was completed under the leadership of local governments.

Among these, the Public Procurement Service took charge of about 34,000 cases suspected to be inherited assets and has been conducting in-depth field investigations since this year. Through this, one parcel suspected of inherited assets has been nationalized, and 70 other parcels are currently undergoing nationalization procedures, with the goal of completing related procedures by 2023, according to the Public Procurement Service.

Aside from the suspected inherited assets handled by the Public Procurement Service, about 70,000 parcels are being maintained in official registries by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and local governments.

Kim Jeong-woo, Administrator of the Public Procurement Service, said, “It is our generation’s rightful duty to find and reclaim even the smallest pieces of land left as remnants of Japanese colonial rule and restore ownership of the land.” He added, “The Public Procurement Service will continue to devote all efforts to nationalizing Japanese-named inherited assets and maintaining official registries free of Japanese names so that we can pass on fully restored cadastral sovereignty to future generations.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.