The ballooning costs of the 2025 Osaka Kansai Expo are raising eyebrows and concerns.

As the total costs skyrocket, the amount of taxpayers' money poured into the expo is bound to rise sharply.

It seems next to impossible to secure the people’s support for the mammoth event if they think that they will ultimately end up bearing the burden of these escalating costs.

The Osaka prefectural and municipal governments, which initiated the idea of hosting the expo, and the national government, which, through Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s pledge to spearhead the project, has positioned itself at the forefront of the event’s execution, should take these serious implications to heart.

With the opening of the Osaka Kansai Expo only a year and a half away, the overall expenses are now certain to run over even the revised estimate.

The construction costs for the key facilities including a guest house, event spaces and the “Grand Roof (Ring),” which will have a circumference of 2 kilometers, are rumored to have surged from 185 billion yen ($1.23 billion) to around 230 billion yen.

Originally, the costs were estimated to come in at 125 billion yen. This is the second upward revision to the cost estimate after the one made in 2020, inflating the initial figure by 80 percent.

As per the funding arrangement, the national government, the Osaka prefectural and municipal governments, and the business community will each bear one-third of the construction costs, meaning the burden on taxpayers will also increase.

The operational costs were estimated to be slightly more than 80 billion yen and were expected to be covered by ticket sales revenue, but an increase by tens of billions of yen seems inevitable.

Last month, Yasutoshi Nishimura, the minister of economy, trade and industry, stated the central government will cover all the security expenses, which will be separated from other operational costs.

Organizers and government officials have blamed the cost overruns on rising material and labor costs as well as the need to enhance security following attacks on two prime ministers in Japan--the late Shinzo Abe and the incumbent, Kishida--and a deadly crowd crush in the Itaewon nightlife area of Seoul in October 2022.

But they need to provide detailed information and explanations about the sharp changes in cost estimates.

What is particularly surprising is how Osaka Ishin no Kai, a regional political party that has been leading the project, has responded to the problem of swelling costs. The party’s members of the Osaka prefectural assembly have urged the assembly to call on the central government to shoulder the increase to the financial burden.

The expo was first proposed by Toru Hashimoto, the then mayor of Osaka and founder of the Osaka Ishin party, to utilize Yumeshima, an artificial island that had been called a "negative legacy," as planned urban development projects on the island have been stalled due to Japan’s economic stagnation.

The Abe administration responded to Hashimoto’s initiative and decided to support the project.

Osaka Governor Hirofumi Yoshimura, who heads Osaka Ishin, has indicated his intention to maintain the "one-third each" burden-sharing formula but will have to address whether the expo is an exception to the "self-sacrificing reforms" to cut costs proposed and promoted by Ishin as one of its key policy planks.

The business community should also take heavy responsibility for the expo’s financing woes. Local businesses have offered to provide funds for the event through donations and ticket purchases, but they should ask themselves whether they can gain understanding from stakeholders, including shareholders.

Aside from the bloating expenses, there are myriad issues piling up, such as the serious delay in the construction of pavilions nearly five dozen countries have said they will build on their own.

Even though the construction industry warned about the situation last fall, the response from the Japan Association for the 2025 World Exposition, the operating entity of the expo, has been bewilderingly sluggish.

Alarmed by the situation, the Kishida administration convened stakeholders at the end of August and declared that the government would take the lead.

Kishida emphasized that the success or failure of the expo would affect the international community’s trust in Japan.

But it seems to be taxpayers' trust that is being undermined. Organizers and policymakers should recognize the seriousness of the situation, which is raising serious questions about the wisdom of hosting the expo.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Oct. 1