Mayor Toshihito Kumagai of Chiba on Tokyo Bay will not confirm if the Japanese city will make a bid for one of the country’s first three integrated resorts. Locations that seem probable now include Osaka and Yokohama.
At a July 25 press conference, Kumagai said an IR bid is not “a given,” though the city has made some forays into the process, including seeking requests for concepts and other information from potential operators. Asked about those moves, the mayor told Nikkei Asian Review, “This is the result of establishing the necessary processes and careful considerations.”
According to Inside Asian Gaming, the city will conduct hearings staring in November to confirm the intentions of the companies and organizations who have submitted information directly, and plans to publish the results of its investigations within the 2019 fiscal year.
“We will decide whether to proceed with a bid based on the individual hearings,” Kumagai said. “We will listen to the opinions of the citizens before making any decisions.”
Chiba Governor Kensaku Morita added, “An issue like this requires local consensus. At the prefectural level, we plan to conduct the necessary discussions and respond appropriately to any specific concerns of our residents.”
Meanwhile, in Osaka, the prefectural and city governments are irked by the central government’s delays in forming a Casino Management Board and the issuance of specific regulations regarding IR bids and requirements. Those delays push the whole process farther into the future, when Osaka is committed to opening its presumed integrated resort by 2024, in time for the 2025 World Expo, which it will host.
If the IR is delayed beyond that, it will create a “massive loss of economic opportunity” for the region, according to Asia Gaming Brief. Twenty-eight million people are expected to visit Yumeshima Island in Osaka for the six-month Expo.
“I would like the government to do what was planned, not to do things for political reasons,” griped Osaka Governor Hirofumi Yoshimura, suggesting that the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe suspended action on casinos until after the July national elections.
