Posted August. 08, 2004 21:56,
In the first half of this year, residential construction permit was issued for more than twice as much land in the Chungcheong area as in the same period last year, while they decreased greatly in other areas, according to a government report released yesterday.
The Ministry of Construction and Transportation revealed that the nationwide residential construction -permitted area in the first six months of 2004 was 20.538 million square meters, down 40.4 percent from last years 34.457 million square meters. The construction -permitted area is used as a preceding index showing construction business in advance, because one should build a house within a year after receiving a construction permit unless special circumstances occur.
Seouls construction -permitted area in the first half of the year was 1.681 million square meters, a huge decline of more than 78 percent from 7.791 million square meters in the same period last year. In the greater Seoul metropolitan area, the construction -permitted area was only 7.56 million square meters, less than half of last years 17.86 million square meters.
In addition, large declines were seen in areas such as Busan, Daegu, Gwangju, Daejeon, Jeonbuk, Gyungbuk, Gyungnam, Jeju and so on.
In contrast, construction permit was up in the Chungcheong area as part of the anticipated regional development in advance of construction of a new administrative capital there.
In southern Chungcheong province, the construction-permitted area increased by 180 percent, from 788,000 square meters in the first half of last year to 2.207 million square meters in the same period of this year. In northern Chungcheong province, it was up by 107 percent, from 590,000 square meters to 1.221 million square meters.
Meanwhile, the construction-permitted area in the first half of the year in the local area was larger than that in the metropolitan area; the former was almost 12.978 million square meters, 63.2 percent of the total, while the latter was 7.56 million square meters covering 36.8 percent.
The construction-permitted area in the first half of the year in the metropolitan area has been much larger than that in the local area every year since 1998 except for 2002, when they recorded similar sizes.