Osaka: pro-IR governor wins re-election

Hirofumi Yoshimura of the Osaka Innovation Party has been re-elected as governor of Osaka prefecture.

Japan.- The project to develop an integrated resort in Osaka looks set to be able to go ahead after current governor Hirofumi Yoshimura, leader of the Osaka Innovation party and a major proponent of the project, was re-elected as governor of Osaka prefecture on Sunday.

Yoshimura received 2.41m votes, 73.7 per cent of the votes cast. Meanwhile, Hideyuki Yokoyama, also from Osaka Innovation, was elected mayor of Osaka with 655,802 votes, or 64.6 per cent of the vote.

After being re-elected, Yoshimura said Osaka “needs an IR with a casino”. He hopes the resort, which still needs approval from the national government, will open in 2029. He said referred to the delays in approval and said that he hopes the government will now “deliver the result of the IR examination as soon as possible.”

According to GGRAsia’s Japan correspondent, Yoshimura said that Osaka’s IR policy “got the public consent to a certain extent.” That’s despite a survey conducted by Asahi Shimbun finding that 47 per cent of city residents were against the integrated resort plan.

Osaka has bid to host an integrated resort with MGM Resorts International and ORIX as its IR partner. MGM-Orix has proposed to invest JPY1.08tn (US$8.38bn)