Over 70 percent of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) members of the Hokkaido prefectural assembly attended on Monday a working group pushing for an integrated resort (IR) with casino on Japan’s northernmost large island (pictured).
According to information reviewed by GGRAsia’s Japan correspondent, 38 of the LDP’s 53 members on the 100-seat Hokkaido prefectural assembly attended the IR policy working group.
At the first meeting of the working group after its establishment in December, only 15 LDP assembly members were in attendance.
A speaker at the latest working group gathering was Makoto Nakagawa, former secretary general of the IR Promotion Bureau at national-government level, and who led the Cabinet Office team in steering the country’s IR Act.
According to the Hokkaido LDP’s working group leader, assembly member Joichi Ito, a third meeting will be held in the autumn. The group aims eventually to establish a caucus group in the assembly.
Hokkaido’s LDP had included the aspiration for a local IR in its policy manifesto for the April 2019 unified election in the prefecture.
But in November 2019, Hokkaido’s governor passed up the chance of taking part in a first round of local-authority applications for the right to host a casino resort in Japan.
Eventually there were only two applications within Japan and only one of those – by Osaka prefecture and city – was approved by the national government for a link with private sector partners led by MGM Resorts International and Japan’s Orix Corp. That scheme is due to open in 2030.
In May this year, Norifumi Ide, a former senior official under the country’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, said Japan’s government should launch soon an anticipated second round for communities across the country to apply for the right to host a casino resort.
It is feasible that non-gaming infrastructure requirements for local government could be eased via regulation rather than changes to the IR Act, if Japan opens a fresh round of applications, said Tomohiro Takagi, a partner at law firm Nishimura & Asahi (Japan), in recent comments to GGRAsia.
Casino resorts have been touted as a way to boost economic development in host locations, and as a route to increasing tourism from overseas. The country is aiming for 60 million tourists annually by 2030.
On June 20, Ichiro Takahashi, commissioner of the Japan Tourism Agency, said the target would be “tough” to achieve.
Though he also affirmed – as cited by Kyodo News – that 2024 inbound tourism volume to Japan could surpass the annual record of 31.88 million logged in 2019, if the current pace of increase in arrivals continued.
