Korea’s National Pension Service (NPS) announced on July 2nd that it would jointly buy an office building located in central Tokyo with The Carlyle Group for about 460 billion won.

NPS said this building is equipped with environmentally friendly and advanced facilities which make efficient energy management possible so that they expect to yield stable rental income over the long term.

With this investment, NPS plans to expand direct investments in prime property assets in major cities such as New York, London, Paris and Sydney. Returns from property investment have improved drastically since the real estate market experienced price corrections from the last part of 2008.

NPS plans to invest 5 percent of its 2009 assets for alternative investment, especially on foreign alternative.