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CHAPTER 10 CONSTRUCTION
This chapter contains statistics on construction orders received, construction works started, construction works executed, buildings destructed and deflators for cost of construction work. Main sources of these data are "Survey on Construction Works" and "Survey on Building Construction", all of which are conducted by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism.
Survey on Construction Works (Fundamental Statistical Survey)
This survey was first conducted in 1955 by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism to clarify actual conditions of construction works and construction industry. Since then, the survey had undergone a number of revisions. The survey is composed of "Construction Work Survey" and "Current Survey of Orders Received for Construction".
Construction Work Survey
This survey was formulated as the present form of sample survey in 1975. It aims to clarify the actual situation of construction industry and its activities in order to contribute to the formulation of economic policies in general and of policies for construction industry in particular. This survey covers main offices of constructors licensed by the Minister for Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism or the prefectural governor in accordance with the Construction Industry Law; among which those with a capital or a subscription of 30 million yen or more, pavement, sheet-metal work and water-well drilling are all surveyed, and other constructors licensed by prefectural governor are selected by random sampling method. The term of the survey is one year ending 31 March of every year or the nearest closing day before that. The survey has been conducted by prefectures using the mailing method.
Current Survey of Orders Received for Construction
The survey is a consolidated survey of three old surveys that had been conducted until fiscal 1999; "Statistical Survey on Starts of Public Works", "Statistical Survey on Starts of Private Construction Works", and "Statistical Survey on Received Orders for Construction Works". This survey is intended to clarify the trend of received orders and details of received works from public and private organisations, in order to provide basic information needed for various economic and social policies.
The survey, which is conducted as of the end of each month, covers the primary contracts of 5 million yen or more for each, undertaken by all contractors with annual completed works amounting 5 billion yen or more and by sampled contractors with annual works amounting 100 million yen or more but less than 5 billion yen. Due to the revision of the classification of orderers, Electric Power Development Co., Ltd. and forestry cooperatives were transferred to the private sector in fiscal 2003. And, Tokyo Metro Co., Ltd. was transferred to the private sector in fiscal 2005.
Current Survey of Orders Received for Construction (Big 50 Constructors)
The survey has been conducted every month since April 1959 by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism with the aim to clarify the investment activities of enterprises as well as the trend of business activities. It is a sample survey based on purposive sampling, which covered 46 major constructors at first. In fiscal 1963, 42 constructors were added to the coverage of the survey, and the survey was divided into two parts: the primary survey and the secondary one. From fiscal 1966, the survey covered 83 constructors, consisted of 43 constructors for the primary survey and 40 for the secondary. However, in fiscal 1985, the division of the primary and the secondary survey was abolished, and the sample size was reduced to 50 constructors.
Survey on Building Construction
With the enforcement of the Building Standard Act in 1950, notification by the owner-to-be is required prior to the start of the new construction of building; similarly, the removal of a building is to be notified by the remover prior to the start of the work; and any building which was destroyed or damaged by disaster is to be reported by the head of the shi (cities), ku (wards), machi (towns) or mura (villages), to the respective prefectural governor (excluding any cases with a floor area of 10 square metres or less). Based on the notifications and reports, questionnaires are filled out at prefectural offices and statistics are compiled from them every month by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism.
Survey of Building Construction Work Started (Fundamental Statistical Survey)
"Statistics on Building Construction Started" and "Statistics on Starts of Dwelling Construction" are compiled on the basis of the above-mentioned notifications. In addition, "Supplementary Survey" is conducted on sampled buildings in the urban area whose construction work has been started, in order to adjust the projected cost of construction reported in the "Statistics on Building Construction Started" to the actual cost of construction executed. The actual cost is collected by the enumerator's survey method when the work is completed.
Survey of Building Destruction
This survey consists of "Statistics on Buildings Removed" and "Statistics on Damaged Buildings", which are compiled based on the notification of removal and the report of disaster, respectively.
Construction Cost Deflators
The deflator, which is to be used to convert the nominal cost of construction work to the cost measured by the price of the base year, has been compiled every month by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism since fiscal 1951. In the outset, the deflator covered civil engineering works only, and called as "Civil Engineering Cost Deflators". The present name was adopted in fiscal 1960 when the coverage was extended to cover building works. The base year of the present deflator is fiscal 2005, and the deflator for each component is calculated by the Laspeyres type formula with the weights based on the ratios of materials and labour cost by kind of construction work to the total cost of construction. The deflator for the total cost is computed as an implicit deflator, by calculating the real cost of components first, and then dividing the total nominal cost by the total of real cost of components.