{"id":28771,"date":"2022-04-07T07:13:57","date_gmt":"2022-04-07T10:13:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=28771"},"modified":"2026-04-23T09:49:30","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T12:49:30","slug":"wakayama-governor-urges-prefectural-assembly-to-vote-in-favour-of-ir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wakayama-governor-urges-prefectural-assembly-to-vote-in-favour-of-ir","title":{"rendered":"Wakayama governor urges prefectural assembly to vote in favour of IR"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Wakayama&#8217;s governor hopes to submit IR plans to central government before the April 28 deadline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>Japan.- Yoshinobu Nisaka, governor of Japan&#8217;s Wakayama Prefecture, has called on the prefectural council to follow the City Council&#8217;s lead and vote for the local integrated casino resort (IR) plan in order to be able to submit an application to national government before the April 28 deadline. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The city council&nbsp;<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wakayama-city-council-gives-first-ok-to-ir-bid\" target=\"_blank\">voted on the IR district development plan<\/a>&nbsp;late last month. However, <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/concerns-continue-around-wakayama-ir-funding\" target=\"_blank\">The Wakayama prefectural assembly committee<\/a>&nbsp;has previously expressed<strong>&nbsp;concern that planning and fundraising for the project remain unclear<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nisaka said: \u201cIt would be a big problem if the assembly does not vote in favour of the prefecture submitting the IR plan to the central government.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The governor added that if the prefectural council &#8220;refuses to submit the local IR proposal to the central authority&#8221;, it would be &#8220;responsible for sabotaging the IR plan&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The prefecture\u2019s chosen private sector partner,&nbsp;<strong>Clairvest Neem Ventures,&nbsp;<\/strong>will raise JPY470bn (US$4.09bn) to invest in the integrated resort, which the prefectural government hopes will be&nbsp;<strong>open by 2026<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Bally\u2019s Corp seeks to enter Japan IR contest with casino resort in Fukuoka<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>A new city could enter the contest to develop an integrated resort in Japan. The US-based&nbsp;<strong>Bally\u2019s Corp<\/strong>&nbsp;has revealed it wants to develop an integrated resort in&nbsp;<strong>Fukuoka<\/strong>, on the northern shore of Japan\u2019s Kyushu Island.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bally said it has plans for a&nbsp;<strong>JPY480m (US$3.9bn) IR&nbsp;<\/strong>that would include 2,000 hotel rooms and a 15,000-square-meter (161,459-square-foot) casino. It said the complex could serve about 4.6 million customers a year, most of them domestic, with an estimated annual gross profit of JPY71bn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Christopher Jewett<\/strong>, vice president of corporate development at Bally\u2019s said: \u201cThe project can raise the stature of this historic region into a truly international destination in keeping with its long and rich heritage.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, the mayor of Fukuoka has reportedly said he is not interested in hosting IRs in the metropolis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/japan-opens-application-period-for-ir-submissions-until-april-2022\" target=\"_blank\">Up to three IRs may be allowed in Japan<\/a>&nbsp;under the existing liberalisation plan. Nagasaki and Osaka are also currently likely to submit corresponding casino resort applications.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wakayama&#8217;s governor hopes to submit IR plans to central government before the April 28 deadline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":20098,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"Wakayama Prefecture's Governor Nisaka is urging the prefectural council to approve its IR plan for submission by the April 28 deadline, despite prior concerns regarding project planning and fundraising for the JPY470bn development with Clairvest Neem Ventures. Concurrently, Bally's Corp has expressed interest in developing an integrated resort in Fukuoka, though the city's mayor reportedly opposes such projects, highlighting the complex regulatory and political landscape for Japan's nascent casino market.","focusai_entities":"Yoshinobu Nisaka, Wakayama Prefectural Council, Wakayama City Council, Clairvest Neem Ventures, Bally's Corp, Christopher Jewett","focusai_location":"Japan, Wakayama, Fukuoka, Kyushu Island, Nagasaki, Osaka","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (0.9), compliance_legal (0.8), operator_casino (0.9), investor_analyst (0.9), supplier_vendor (0.8), journalist_researcher (0.85)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Wakayama IR Approval?","query":"What specific governance framework deficiencies or fundraising clarity issues are impeding the Wakayama Prefectural Council's approval of the IR plan, and what is the central government's contingency for delayed submissions?"},{"label":"Fukuoka IR Viability?","query":"Given the reported mayoral opposition, what is Bally's Corp's strategic pathway to secure local political support and navigate the regulatory landscape for its proposed Fukuoka IR, and how does this impact its capital allocation strategy?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[157,16338,158],"tags":[23911,23632],"class_list":["post-28771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-news","category-east-asia-news","category-slider-home","tag-gambling-regulation","tag-integrated-resorts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28771"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28771\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29170,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28771\/revisions\/29170"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}