Japan Press Weekly

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2008 June 18 - 24 [TOKYO]

JCP criticizes Tokyo for plan to squander 1 trillion-yen on Olympic-related projects

At the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly plenary session on June 17, Japanese Communist Party representative Kotake Hiroko took up the question Tokyo Governor Ishihara Shintaro’s 1.3 trillion yen project for hosting the 2016 Olympic Games.

Pointing out that Tokyo’s projected cost for building athletic facilities and improving infrastructure is much higher than those for three other candidate cities, she asked the governor to disclose the details of his plan.

Kotake said that the development of Olympic related-facilities is expected to cost nearly two trillion yen, including the cost for land acquisition for building a stadium and a media center.

Tokyo has a plan to build the media center at the present site of the Tsukiji wholesale market after it is relocated to the Toyosu district. But Tokyo has to spend a lot of money to remove contaminated soil from Toyosu before the relocation, as a part of the cost for the development for the Olympics.

Ishihara refused to disclose the total estimate by stating, “These are the necessary expenses to survive the competition with world cities regardless of whether Tokyo will win the bid to host the Olympic Games in 2016.”

According to an application document submitted by the Tokyo 2016 Bid Committee to the International Olympic Committee, 1.580 trillion yen will be needed to improve the infrastructures, three times the amounts projected by Chicago and Rio de Janeiro.

The expenditure on constructing or improving Olympic facilities is 246.3 billion yen, the highest among the 4 candidate cities.

Those figures show that what Tokyo is planning is contrary to its slogan: “The most compact Olympic Games in the world.” - Akahata, June 18, 2008