THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
November 2, 2023 at 18:42 JST
Osaka Governor Hirofumi Yoshimura speaks at a Nov. 1 meeting regarding the 2025 Osaka Kansai Expo while Osaka Mayor Hideyuki Yokoyama looks on. (Juntaro Oka)
The central government on Nov. 2 agreed to shoulder additional construction costs for the increasingly expensive 2025 Osaka Kansai Expo.
The decision to use more taxpayer money for the event came a day after the Osaka prefectural and municipal governments said they would cover their share of the extra costs.
The local governments said they hope the estimated economic benefits from the event will outweigh the ballooning expenses.
Three parties are supposed to evenly shoulder the construction costs for the expo: the central government, the Osaka prefectural and municipal governments, and the business sector.
The business sector issued a statement on Nov. 1 saying the increased costs could not be helped.
The initial estimate for the construction costs was 125 billion yen ($831 million), but that was increased to 185 billion yen in December 2020.
And in late October this year, the Japan Association for the 2025 World Exposition made another revision and said the estimated cost would be as much as 235 billion yen.
On Nov. 1, Osaka Governor Hirofumi Yoshimura and Osaka Mayor Hideyuki Yokoyama met with association officials and indicated their two governments would pay for the cost increase on grounds the rise in consumer prices had been greater than expected.
In 2018, after Osaka was chosen to host the world expo, the economy ministry released an estimate that the economic benefits from the expo would total 2 trillion yen.
After the first cost increase was announced, the Osaka-based Asia Pacific Institute of Research released an estimate that said if more visitors came to the Kansai region because of the world expo, the economic benefits could reach 2.8 trillion yen.
But such estimates are dependent on large numbers of visitors to the expo.
The current estimate assumes about 28.2 million visitors will take in the world expo, a figure that exceeds the actual number who went to the 2005 Aichi World Expo.
(This article was written by Yuichi Nobira, Kazuhito Suwa and Koji Nishimura.)
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