Current timetable is for local governments to apply to the national government within the first seven months of 2021 for the right to host a resort, after finding a private-sector partner.
“I think there is a possibility to extend the ‘end of application date’,” beyond July 2021, Masahiro Terada, a Japan-based consultant at a financial services firm, told GGRAsia.
Japan’s national government declared a COVID-19 nationwide emergency on April 16. It was not until Monday last week (May 25) that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe lifted the designation for Tokyo and Hokkaido, the last two places to come out of restrictions.
The disruption to the national economy and normal business life wrought by COVID-19 has come at a moment the local and central authorities already had full in-trays. A number of local governments has been racing to set up or complete request-for-proposal (RFC) phases with casino investors, and the national government has not yet issued the final version of its so-called basic policy on IRs, which is due to set out the criteria by which schemes will be assessed.
Terada noted nonetheless that the national authorities were “on schedule” to deliver the basic policy “before July 26″ this year.
Ayako Nakayama, representative director of the Japan IR Association, described as a voluntary group that connects domestic and international entities interested in the IR national initiative, acknowledged to GGRAsia that there had been questions raised about whether the front-end 2021 application timetable was “realistic” in the light of the COVID-19 disruption.
The international industry had been “questioning whether the [IR] local selection process, which is planned to happen January to July in 2021, will be postponed a year or so,” said Nakayama. She added however that maintaining the timetable might help to focus the efforts of all those involved.
The financial capability of the international IR operators has to a varying extent been negatively affected by the pandemic. That could have an impact on their relationship with the Japan market, where total capital expenditure of US$10 billion is routinely mentioned for a big-city IR.
“IR operators’ capability for investment on a Japan IR is now more uncertain under the Covid-19 outbreak,” the Japan IR Association’s Nakayama told GGRAsia.
Source: GMB / GGRAsia
