{"id":31251,"date":"2022-06-29T04:27:17","date_gmt":"2022-06-29T07:27:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=31251"},"modified":"2026-04-23T07:19:56","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T10:19:56","slug":"wakayama-to-close-ir-promotion-office","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wakayama-to-close-ir-promotion-office","title":{"rendered":"Wakayama to close IR promotion office"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Wakayama’s prefecture has decided to close its IR office from tomorrow (June 30). It will be absorbed into another department in the planning policy bureau.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Japan.- Two months after the\u00a0Wakayama Prefectural Assembly<\/a>\u00a0rejected plans for a proposed casino resort in the city, authorities have reported the IR office set up to coordinate issues related to the development of an integrated resort will be closed from June 30.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the Wakayama prefecture, the IR promotion office will be absorbed into another department at the planning policy bureau.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On April 20,\u00a022 members of the prefectural council voted against the IR plan<\/strong>, versus 18 in favour.\u00a0The Wakayama prefectural assembly committee<\/a>\u00a0had previously expressed concern that planning and fundraising for the project remained unclear. However, the prefecture\u2019s governor Yoshinobu Nisaka has expressed hopes that the project could be resurrected in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nisaka said the\u00a0integrated resort could have helped the economy<\/a>\u00a0by boosting tourism and said that \u201ceconomic and employment forces\u201d in the city were currently insufficient.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only Osaka and Nagasaki have submitted bids to develop IRs to Japan’s central government. The cities submitted IR District Development Plans that were approved by their city councils and prefectural assemblies.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, in Osaka,\u00a0an anti-IR group<\/a>\u00a0is pushing for a referendum on its plans to develop an integrated resort. It’s gathered 208,552 signatures \u2013 enough to reach the threshold of 2 per cent of local voters necessary for a referendum. It is therefore expected that a draft ordinance will be presented in the prefectural assembly with the government\u2019s opinion on the matter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wakayama’s prefecture has decided to close its IR office from tomorrow (June 30). It will be absorbed into another department in the planning policy bureau.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":0,"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 has decided to close its Integrated Resort (IR) office following the rejection of its casino resort plan by the prefectural assembly. While Governor Yoshinobu Nisaka hopes for future resurrection, this development underscores the significant regulatory and public sentiment hurdles facing IR projects in Japan, with Osaka also facing a potential referendum on its bid.","focusai_entities":"Wakayama Prefecture, Yoshinobu Nisaka, Osaka, Nagasaki, Japan's central government","focusai_location":"Japan, Wakayama, Osaka, Nagasaki","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (0.9), compliance_legal (0.8), operator_casino (0.9), investor_analyst (0.9), supplier_vendor (0.7), journalist_researcher (0.9)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Wakayama IR Project Future?","query":"What specific governance framework deficiencies or funding ambiguities led to Wakayama's IR plan rejection, and what is the likelihood of Governor Nisaka's efforts to resurrect the project?"},{"label":"Osaka Referendum Impact?","query":"How might the potential referendum in Osaka impact the central government's timeline for IR approvals and the overall investor confidence in Japan's integrated resort market?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[157,16338],"tags":[23632],"class_list":["post-31251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business-news","category-east-asia-news","tag-integrated-resorts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31251","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=31251"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31277,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31251\/revisions\/31277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}