Regional Logistics Real Estate

Logistics facilities in regional areas of Japan have been attracting increased interest, on the back of the reshoring of the semiconductor industry and the 2024 problem.

Japan’s major semiconductor production bases have traditionally been located in regional areas rich in land and water resources, and the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic has acted as a catalyst spurring investment in such locations to establish new factories and to expand production capacity on a hitherto unseen scale. Demand for logistics space in these areas had previously been centered on consumer goods, but the rise in semiconductor-related investments is generating new demand from the manufacturing industry.

The 2024 problem has also channeled demand for new and modern logistics facilities in cities outside Greater Tokyo, where logistics networks have been relatively underdeveloped.

In contrast to Greater Tokyo, where rents are unlikely to meaningfully rise due to the loose supply-demand balance, there is a definite scope for rental growth in these regional areas given the shortage of modern logistics facilities. This report provides an overview of the current status and future projections for the logistics real estate markets in some of the major regional cities of Japan.