Land prices in Japan as of Jan. 1 declined an average 0.7 percent from a year earlier for the sixth straight yearly fall but the margin of decline narrowed from last year's 1.8 percent, the National Tax Agency said in its annual report released Tuesday.
The survey, which covered about 339,000 points across the country and was used for inheritance tax calculations, also showed the first rise in six years in the country's three biggest urban areas of Tokyo, Osaka and Aichi prefectures.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's economic policy mix of aggressive monetary easing, massive fiscal spending and growth strategy, dubbed "Abenomics," helped land prices mainly in urban areas recover, agency officials said.