 Local JCP blocks mega shopping mall construction plan In Mito City, Ibaraki Prefecture, the Japanese Communist Party Mito City Assembly members' group in cooperation with local small shop owners has blocked a plan to construct a mega shopping mall. Sojitz Corporation, a major trading company, on January 28 announced that it abandoned the plan to construct the Mito Mega Mall, one of the largest commercial facilities of its kind in Japan. The reason Sojitz Corporation gave for giving up the plan was that its business partner developer Taiheiyo Bussan Co., Ltd. had cozy ties with an organized crime syndicate. The local JCP has long conducted an independent investigation and informed the city assembly as well as citizens of Taiheiyo Bussan's dubious qualifications and of its intimate ties with the organized crime. The JCP found out that a leader of the organized crime group had his right of lease registered with Taiheiyo Bussan's property within the planned construction site of Mito Mega Mall and the registered land had been seized by the Regional Taxation Bureau because of the gang's failure to pay taxes. The JCP also discovered that Taiheiyo Bussan had some of its properties seized by the tax office and lost its license for doing real estate business. A retail shop owner said that the Mito Mega Mall would have dealt a heavy blow to local shopping districts and that he is very glad that the plan was withdrawn although he had once given up on blocking the plan. (end) |