international routes, JetStar, 19 domestic routes and one international route, Vanilla Air, three domestic routes and four international routes and Spring Airlines, three domestic routes as of March 2015.

In the meantime, Skymark Airlines filed for the commencement rehabilitation proceedings under the Civil Rehabilitation Law on January 28, 2015. Court-led proceedings are now underway.

## 5 Trends in the Consigned Freight Forwarding Business and Measures

The consigned freight forwarding business Note is combined with multiple means of transport to provide services specific to varied user needs. Recent years have witnessed growing entry into the aircraft- and ship-based segments of international shipment to reflect the cargo owners’ needs for globalization.

Further, as internal trade takes on an increasingly important tone, global shipment gets more streamlined than before, urging safety assurance during transportation. The MLIT works to ensure the availability of safe and secure logistics services, as by conducting audits, etc. to consolidate thorough operator code compliance.

## Trends in the Warehousing Business and Measures

Commercial warehouses play a significant role as nodal points of physical distribution. There are 5,975 warehouse operators (4,798 ordinary warehouse operators, 1,177 refrigerated warehouse operators) as of the end of FY2013.

In recent years, the construction of large, intelligent physical distribution facilities by foreign or domestic real estate entities or funds has been activated, giving birth to warehouse operators who rent such facilities to develop their businesses. To fulfill sophisticated and diversified needs for physical distribution, warehouse operators tend to combine other multiple physical distribution businesses, such as a consigned freight forwarding business.

The introduction of equipment that makes for a lower-carbon implementation is underway, as well as the introduction of emergency power supplies and telecommunications equipment that help build a disaster-tolerant warehouse.

## Trends in the Truck Terminal Business and Measures

The truck terminal business plays a significant role in streamlining the flow of transport, mitigating congestion and so on as a nodal point of trucking between a trunk line and a terminal. In recent years, the construction of facilities that provide the functionality of a distribution center (sorting, processing for distribution and so on), as well as loading and unloading, is in progress to meet the sophisticated and diversified needs for logistics.

The introduction of equipment that makes for a lower-carbon implementation is underway, as well as the introduction of emergency power supplies and telecommunications equipment that help build a disaster-tolerant truck terminal.

## 8 Trends in the Real Estate Business and Measures

## (1) Real estate business trends

The real estate business is one of the key industries that command 2.7% of the total sales of all industries and 11.2% of the total number of corporations (FY2013).

Land prices had followed a downward trend nationwide till now. According to the 2015 official land prices (as of January 2015), residential land prices fell but their rate of drop, while the rate of drop in commercial land prices moved sideways (0.0%) from a declining state. The average land prices in Japan’s three largest metropolitan zones, which had turned for a rise last year, continued to rise for both residential and commercial land. In the regional zones, on the other hand, land prices continued falling down, but the rate of drop narrowed. The number of new housing starts, after exceeding 890 thousand in FY2012, topped 980 thousand in FY2013 but sagged to 880 in FY2014 upon loss from rebounding from the last-minute demand stirred by a hike in the consumption tax rate.

Note A business that transports cargoes by the means of transport (motor trucks, railways, aircrafts, ships) owned by real carriers (who undertake transportation by themselves) in a fully integrated, complex flow of door-to-door transportation, from picking up cargoes to delivering them.