GGRAsia – Nagasaki flags US$4.3bln top-end cost for casino IR

Nagasaki flags US$4.3bln top-end cost for casino IR

Mar 05, 2020 Newsdesk Japan, Latest News, Top of the deck

Japan’s Nagasaki prefecture has mentioned in an updated economic impact paper, a lower figure for maximum casino resort construction investment in that location than had been mooted in December.

The latest update, presented at a prefectural assembly meeting on Tuesday, mentioned construction investment in an integrated resort or “IR” – as large-scale casino complexes with non-gaming tourism facilities are known in that country – in the range of JPY350 billion (US$3.26 billion) to JPY460 billion.

In December the prefecture had mentioned capital spend in the range of JPY320 billion to JPY550 billion.

It was not clear from information collated on behalf of GGRAsia, whether the revised capital cost included or excluded spend on transport infrastructure improvements – possibly a pier for a fast ferry service, or a railway spur line – to bring tourists from nearby ports and airports to Nagasaki’s chosen site for an IR on land at the Huis Ten Bosch theme park in Sasebo city (pictured), part of the prefecture.

The latest provisional price range for a Nagasaki IR is still a lot more than the tentative number mentioned by the prefecture in April 2018, when a figure of JPY200 billion was suggested, according to media reports at the time.

Nagasaki prefecture had announced in early October its request-for-concept (RFC) guidelines for commercial partners interested in running a casino resort locally, but had not given at that stage any information about expected economic impact from such a project, according to GGRAsia’s Japan correspondent.

In Tuesday’s update on potential economic benefits of an IR, Nagasaki mentioned the likelihood that it could attract annually 6.9 million to 9.3 million visits to the city.

That figure had been mentioned in mid-February by the Nagasaki Shimbun newspaper.

In late January Nagasaki prefecture told GGRAsia there was “no change” in the timetable regarding its tilt at hosting a “Nagasaki-Kyushu” casino resort, despite the national authorities saying at that time they might delay publication of the national so-called basic policy on integrated resorts.

Days before that, Nagasaki told GGRAsia that it had – by the time of a deadline on January 10 – received a total of three submissions under its RFC process.

Three companies had previously publicly-confirmed their participation in Nagasaki’s RFC phase. They were: Oshidori International Holdings Ltd, a Hong Kong-listed investment holding firm; Japan’s Current Corp; and Casinos Austria International Holding GmbH.