{"id":777004126,"date":"2023-04-10T12:57:13","date_gmt":"2023-04-10T15:57:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=777004126"},"modified":"2026-04-22T22:59:57","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T01:59:57","slug":"osaka-pro-ir-governor-wins-re-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/osaka-pro-ir-governor-wins-re-election","title":{"rendered":"Osaka: pro-IR governor wins re-election"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Hirofumi Yoshimura of the Osaka Innovation Party has been re-elected as governor of Osaka prefecture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>Japan.- The project to develop an integrated resort in <strong>Osaka <\/strong>looks set to be able to go ahead after current governor&nbsp;<strong>Hirofumi Yoshimura<\/strong>, leader of the Osaka Innovation party and a major proponent of the project, was re-elected as governor of Osaka prefecture on Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yoshimura received 2.41m votes, 73.7 per cent of the votes cast. Meanwhile, <strong>Hideyuki Yokoyama<\/strong>, also from Osaka Innovation, was elected mayor of Osaka with 655,802 votes, or 64.6 per cent of the vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After being re-elected, Yoshimura said Osaka &#8220;needs an IR with a casino&#8221;. He hopes the resort, which still needs approval from the national government, will open in 2029. He said referred to the&nbsp;<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/japan-delays-osaka-and-nagasaki-casino-plans-over-election-concerns\" target=\"_blank\">delays in approval<\/a> and said that he hopes the government will now &#8220;deliver the result of the IR examination as soon as possible.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to GGRAsia\u2019s Japan correspondent, Yoshimura said that Osaka&#8217;s IR policy &#8220;got the public consent to a certain extent.\u201d That&#8217;s despite a survey conducted by Asahi Shimbun finding that&nbsp;<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/osaka-casino-project-faces-opposition-in-upcoming-elections\" target=\"_blank\">47 per cent of city residents<\/a>&nbsp;were against the integrated resort plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Osaka has bid to host an integrated resort with MGM Resorts International and ORIX as its&nbsp;<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/osaka-announces-mgm-orix-as-ir-partner\" target=\"_blank\">IR partner<\/a>. MGM-Orix has proposed to invest JPY1.08tn (US$8.38bn)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hirofumi Yoshimura of the Osaka Innovation Party has been re-elected as governor of Osaka prefecture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":6639,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"Osaka Governor Hirofumi Yoshimura, a strong proponent of the integrated resort project, has been re-elected, significantly bolstering the prospects for the proposed casino-inclusive development. His re-election, alongside a new Osaka Mayor from the same party, signals continued political will for the JPY1.08tn MGM Resorts International and ORIX-backed IR, despite reported public opposition. Yoshimura urges national government approval to meet the targeted 2029 opening.","focusai_entities":"Hirofumi Yoshimura, Osaka Innovation Party, Hideyuki Yokoyama, GGRAsia, Asahi Shimbun, MGM Resorts International, ORIX","focusai_location":"Japan, Osaka","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.95), regulator (0.9), compliance_legal (0.75), operator_casino (0.98), payments_fraud_aml (0.7), investor_analyst (0.98), supplier_vendor (0.85), journalist_researcher (0.9)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"National IR Approval Timeline","query":"What specific regulatory milestones and political considerations remain for the national government to grant final approval for the Osaka IR, and what is the projected timeline for this decision?"},{"label":"Investment & Project Financing","query":"How might the re-election of Governor Yoshimura impact the financing structure and potential for additional investment partners for the JPY1.08tn Osaka IR project?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[157,16338],"tags":[23632],"class_list":["post-777004126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-news","category-east-asia-news","tag-integrated-resorts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777004126","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=777004126"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777004126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":777004163,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777004126\/revisions\/777004163"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777004126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777004126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777004126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}