CONSTRUCTION STATISTICS JAPAN

The construction industry, accounting for about 10 percent of both GDP and all employed persons, is one of the core industries in Japan. However, it faces a series of challenges, including rapidly shrinking construction investment and increasingly fierce price wars. The business environment surrounding the industry is now harsher than ever before. In fiscal 2011, the industry employed (excluding Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures) 4.74 million persons, and investment in construction stood at approximately 42.0 trillion yen.

Investment in construction in fiscal 2011 showed a year-on-year increase of 2.7 percent at current prices and a year-on-year increase of 2.0 percent at constant prices, for the reference year 2005. Construction investment in fiscal 2011 was down 50.0 percent compared to fiscal 1992, when it hit a peak of approximately 84.0 trillion yen.

A breakdown of construction investment shows that building construction totaled 23.1 trillion yen (up 4.5 percent from the previous fiscal year), while civil engineering works amounted to 18.9 trillion yen (up 0.6 percent).

In terms of public and private construction investment in fiscal 2011, public investment amounted to 16.9 trillion yen (up 0.2 percent from the previous fiscal year), while private investment totaled 25.1 trillion yen (up 4.5 percent). Public investment accounted for 40.3 percent of total construction investment, while private investment accounted for 59.7 percent.

The 2011 total floor space of building starts was 126.5 million square meters, up 4.2 percent from the previous year. In particular, the floor space of buildings for medical, healthcare and welfare use increased by 46.5 percent compared to the previous year, to 10.9 million square meters. Meanwhile, the number of housing construction starts (in the case of an apartment building, the number of apartment units was counted) fell in rental housing but increased in owned homes and built-for-sale housing, adding up to 0.83 million units. This was a 2.6-percent increase from the previous year, and increased for two fiscal years continuously.

Source : Statistics Bureau Japan

http://www.stat.go.jp/english/data/handbook/c06cont.htm