Could Shinjo City, Japan become the site of a future integrated resort (IR) complex with casino?
GGRAsia, which reported local interest in the project last fall, says more than 1,000 residents have signed a petition in support an IR in the city, located in Yamagata Prefecture. An executive at Shotoku Corp. said the company is acting in an advisory capacity on the issue on behalf of local businesses.
“The ‘Shinjo City IR Attraction Committee’, made up of members of the Shinjo City Junior Chamber of Commerce and other local business leaders, has been working to explain the project to the citizens of Shinjo and its neighbors, and in a very short period of time has collected over 1,000 signatures in support of the IR,” said Shotoku’s Hidenobu Takagi.
Shinjo City is a small community of about 35,000 people close to Yamagata City, in the Tohoku region of Japan’s main island. Yamagata has about 250,000 inhabitants and is the capital of the prefecture.
“The committee and its advisor, Shotoku, are now in discussions with the section of Shinjo City in charge, taking into account the schedule in Japan,” Takagi added.
It is likely too late for Shinjo City to participate in the first phase of liberalization in Japan; local governments must apply for the right to host an IR by April 28. In that first phase, up to three IRs will be licensed in Japan. More may be approved in seven years. Currently, only three local communities are in the running for respectively hosting such a scheme. They are: Osaka, Nagasaki, and Wakayama.
Shotoku Corp. is a unit of Japan’s Current Corp, a firm previously linked with interest in developing an integrated resort in Nagasaki.
Kuwana, another small city, asked its local prefecture to consider an IR there. Kuwana is in Mie Prefecture, in the Kansai region of Japan’s main island Honshu. It has a population of about 145,000.
