Up against the wall

Japan is suffering from a dramatic fall in land prices. The site of the Hotel New Japan, badly damaged in a fire in the early 1980s, was not sold until June 1995, and then for only 59.7 billion Japanese yen versus the June 1994 reserve price of 99.4 billion Japanese yen. Togensha Corp, which was famous for buying expensive land in central Tokyo and building property for rent, has debts of 320 billion yen, because of the collapse of land prices.