By YOSHICHIKA YAMANAKA/ Staff Writer
May 16, 2022 at 16:30 JST
Okinawa Governor Denny Tamaki, left, hands the Okinawa promotion plan to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, center, in Ginowan, Okinawa Prefecture, on May 15. (Koichi Ueda)
GINOWAN, Okinawa Prefecture--Governor Denny Tamaki has submitted a formal plan to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida aiming to boost the incomes of islanders and scrap a controversial U.S. base relocation project.
Tamaki handed Prime Minister Fumio Kishida the sixth Okinawa promotion plan on May 15, following a ceremony that marked the 50th anniversary of Okinawa's reversion to Japanese sovereignty.
The plan, which serves as an official guideline for the prefecture for the next decade, sets a goal of increasing the prefecture’s income per capita by more than 30 percent within a decade. The figure is currently about five times what it was 50 years ago, yet it remains the lowest in the country.
It also calls for “the pursuit of the relocation of U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma out of the prefecture or out of the country.”
The plan is based on the central government’s basic policy for promoting Okinawa. The policy had mentioned “reducing the burden of hosting U.S. bases,” which has been a longtime political problem given that Okinawa hosts the vast majority of U.S. bases in Japan.
But the new plan goes even further, calling for the removal of the Futenma base from the prefecture.
Tokyo and Naha have repeatedly fought over the relocation of the Futenma base, with the central government digging its heels in each time Tamaki calls for its removal or finding another solution.
With respect to the per capita income, it has improved leaps and bounds since the war, yet still lags behind the rest of Japan. Annual income per person reached the 2-million-yen level ($15,531) in recent years. When Okinawa was returned to Japan, it was only around 400,000 yen.
Under the new plan, prefectural income would increase to 2.91 million yen in fiscal 2031 ending in March 2032 from 2.14 million yen in fiscal 2020. The prefectural government aims to raise income levels through tourism with added value and the digital transformation of industries.
But the previous promotion plan, which was laid out a decade ago, fell far short of its goal. It set a goal of increasing average prefectural income by 31 percent by fiscal 2021 compared to fiscal 2010. Due in part to the novel coronavirus pandemic, the increase was only 3 percent as of fiscal 2020.
The prefectural income in fiscal 2018 was about 70 percent of the national average.
For the first time, the promotion plan calls for its review within five years rather than 10. The previous plans had been updated every decade with the aim of reducing the prefecture’s disparity with the rest of Japan and pushing for its economic independence in the wake of post-war U.S. rule.
The central government had allocated a budget of more than 13 trillion yen for the development of social infrastructure by fiscal 2021.
The central government used to draw up Okinawa’s promotion plan itself. But from the fifth plan, the task fell to Okinawa’s prefectural government.
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