GGRAsia – Wakayama governor calls for assembly yes vote on IR plan

Wakayama governor calls for assembly yes vote on IR plan

Mar 08, 2022 Newsdesk Japan, Latest News, Top of the deck

Wakayama’s governor, Yoshinobu Nisaka, has called on the prefectural assembly to hold an extraordinary meeting – on a date in April still to be confirmed – at which he would seek its approval for the local government’s proposal to host an integrated resort (IR) in that Japanese community (pictured).

April 28 is the deadline for local-government submissions to the national government on the topic of casino resorts.

The governor’s request to the assembly has been made even though a committee of the assembly tasked with scrutinising the matter, has said it is still waiting for the prefectural government to supply confirmation and details on the funding for the scheme.

It has been described in materials issued by the prefecture – in relation to its preferred commercial-sector partner, Clairvest Neem Ventures KK – as a JPY470-billion (US$4.07-billion) project.

On February 7, the prefectural assembly held the third meeting of its IR special committee to examine the draft of its District Development Plan for a casino resort.

That meeting also agreed the prefectural government could go ahead with two public consultation meetings, due on March 12 and 13, despite the IR funding not being confirmed.

Nonetheless, after that meeting, the head of that committee released a statement.

“Unfortunately, the committee has to say that the plan is still unclear in details and is not convincing as to the fundraising. The committee strongly demands the prefecture show the certainty of the fundraising in the next, i.e. fourth [IR special] committee meeting,” the statement said, according to GGRAsia’s Japan correspondent.

As of Tuesday, the date of the fourth meeting of the IR special committee was still to be announced.

The Japanese government opened on October 1 last year the application period for local authorities to pitch as host for a casino resort in that nation, and announced the weighting it would give when scoring such requests.