Japan's net national assets rose in 2006 from a year earlier for the first time in nine years partly as the euro's rise against the yen helped boost net external assets, the Cabinet Office said on Friday.

A rise in land prices also helped push up the value of landholdings for the first time in 16 years since the country's asset-inflated bubble economy burst in the early 1990s, it said.

The national wealth, or net worth of domestic properties plus external assets, stood at 2716.6 trillion yen ($25,300 billion) as of the end of 2006, up 2.9 percent from a year earlier, with net external assets up 24.5 percent to 215.1 trillion yen.

The value of landholdings was up 0.5 percent to 1228.0 trillion yen, which was the first annual rise since 1990 when it rose 9.4 percent from the previous year, according to data by the Cabinet Office's Economic and Social Research Institute.

But the amount of the national wealth in 2006 was far below that in 1990, when it peaked at 3533.1 trillion yen, because the value of landholdings has almost halved since it peaked at 2452.2 trillion yen in 1990, a Cabinet Office official said.

The outstanding balance of national assets rose for the fourth consecutive year to 8561.8 trillion yen in 2006, while the outstanding debts slipped slightly to 5845.2 trillion yen.

The amount of financial assets held by Japanese households was up 2.1 percent to 1572.3 trillion yen.

By sectors, only public sectors saw their balance of assets down, while those held by firms, financial institutions, households and nonprofit organs all registered an increase. (Reporting by Tetsushi Kajimoto)

Japan