Morihiro Oguma's phone rang every day with calls from brokers representing foreign investors who wanted to buy his Japan Mineral water-bottling business.
"In many cases, I was told I could name my price," Oguma said in an interview, adding he had no interest in selling the Hokkaido-based company. "It seems what they really wanted was our rights to groundwater."
A two-decade slump in Japan's real estate prices, an incomplete land registry and lax rules on buying forest with water rights are attracting investors led by China and come amid a fraying of ties between the two countries over a territorial dispute.
While the relative size of land owned by non-Japanese remains small — 3,700 hectares (37 square kilometers) — almost a third of it is on Hokkaido. The island attracted 90 percent of forest purchases and non-Japanese investors bought 20 times more land in Hokkaido in 2009 than two years earlier, according to local government data.
Japan isn't the only place where the Chinese have bought up land rich in natural resources this has been happening in Africa as well. Leading to African nations coming to terms with their ability to provide for their growing populations if the natural resources are controlled by foreign investors.
"There emerged cases where we weren't sure about the reasons why investors were purchasing such vast areas of land," Takahashi said in a Tokyo press conference on Oct. 18. Hokkaido welcomes investment regardless of where the investor is from, yet needs to ensure proper use of water resources, she said.
China leads the purchases of Hokkaido forest and water rights with 21 transactions of a total 57. Hong Kong buyers using Virgin Island-registered offshore companies accounted for another nine and Singapore investors eight, said Masayuki Mitobe, the head of water and land economic research for Hokkaido's government. He said he could not name the investors due to privacy laws.
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