Japan's Hottest Commodity: Water

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 says, adding that he has 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 and the country’s lax rules on selling foreigners forestland with water rights attached are attracting overseas investors, with the Chinese leading the pack. Some areas of remote woodland in Japan, the only country in the Asia-Pacific region that doesn’t regulate property investment by foreigners, can be bought for just 60¢ a square meter, including the groundwater beneath. Groundwater is the water from rain and snow that seeps into the land, where it eventually ends up in aquifers that can be tapped by drilling a well.