Former casino suitor Wakayama to close IR office

Jun 28, 2022 Newsdesk Japan, Latest News, Top of the deck  

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Japan’s Wakayama prefecture is to close on Thursday (June 30) the office that had coordinated its tilt at getting a casino complex, almost three years on from that community having been identified as a potential host by a then national government minister.

On Friday, Wakayama prefecture announced that the IR promotion office would be absorbed into another department of the planning policy bureau.

On April 20 this year the prefectural assembly rejected the local government’s plan for a casino complex or integrated resort (IR) as they are known in that country.

As a result, Wakayama decided not to submit a bid to the national government by the April 28 deadline.

Local elected representatives had earlier expressed concerns that funding for a JPY470-billion (US$3.5-billion) scheme for the Japanese conurbation (pictured) had not been clarified by a chosen private-sector consortium, led by Clairvest Neem Ventures KK.

But Yoshinobu Nisaka, Wakayama’s governor, had said at a regular briefing for the media on April 26 that the prefecture should “take a second chance to apply” for an IR, once a new round of applications was opened by the national authorities.

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