The price stability target is set at around 2 percent in many major economies, including Japan. This is because of the view shared globally that it is important to anchor inflation expectations at 2 percent and to secure sufficient room for a reduction of real interest rates, by keeping the inflation rate stable at around 2 percent.
While varying a bit from year to year, the data published by the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) suggest that foreign purchase approvals have been fairly low as a share of national housing turnover. Specifically, the FIRB data suggest that the value of foreign residential approvals has generally been around 5–10 per cent of the value of national housing turnover.