Public hearings on Nagasaki casino proposal delayed to Feb

Dec 10, 2021 Newsdesk Japan, Latest News, Top of the deck  

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Public consultation will only happen in February regarding Nagasaki prefecture’s District Development Plan for a casino resort in that Japanese conurbation (pictured). The public consultation was originally planned for the beginning of January.

A prefectural assembly vote on the plan is now scheduled for March.

The information was given on Friday, at the Nagasaki prefectural assembly’s general affairs committee, according to GGRAsia’s Japan correspondent.

Casinos Austria International Japan Inc, Nagasaki’s chosen private-sector partner for an integrated resort (IR), is still to provide details of the consortium setup and funding arrangements for its JPY350-billion (US$3.09-billion) proposed scheme.

The prefecture’s draft of the district plan leaves those details out for the time being.

Friday’s committee session saw assembly members asked questions of the prefectural government, including the impact of design changes to the resort concept.

The prefectural government understood those amendments to be “relatively minor”, and believed the resort plan would keep its “consistency”.

The local government added in its commentary to assembly members, that in terms of consortium building, and fund-raising, Casinos Austria International had been “making a full effort”.

The local authority recognised however, that without those elements in place, “the prefecture cannot go ahead with the process” of creating a casino resort.

The Japanese national government opened on October 1 the application period for local authorities to pitch as host for a casino resort, and announced the weighting it will give when scoring such requests. The closing date for applications is April 28, 2022.

Up to three casino complexes will be permitted in Japan, under liberalisation plans.

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