Japan Press Weekly

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2012 January 18 - 24 TOP3 [US FORCES]

Most of Japan’s payments for USMC relocation plan to Guam remain unspent

Most of the over 830 million dollars the Japanese government paid to the United States to transfer a part of the U.S. Marine Corps units from Okinawa to Guam remains unspent. Japan’s payments even earned 3.81 million dollars in interest.

This was revealed by documents the Defense Ministry released in response to a request made by Japanese Communist Party member of the House of Councilors Inoue Satoshi.

The 2009 Japan-U.S. agreement on the USMC Guam relocation stipulates that Japan will provide 2.8 billion dollars in direct cash contributions to develop infrastructure on Guam. Based on the agreement, Japan in FY 2009 paid to the United States 336 million dollars, of which the U.S. government spent only 9.23 million dollars. In FY 2010, the U.S. received 497.8 million dollars, all of which remains unspent.

In 2006, the Japanese and U.S. governments agreed on a plan to relocate 8,000 USMC personnel and their 9,000 family members from Okinawa to Guam by 2014. The U.S. government, however, substantially reduced its monetary contribution in FY 2011 for financial reasons, and totally eliminated it in FY 2012 budget request. Since then, the relocation plan has been virtually frozen.

The USMC Guam relocation agreement states that the U.S. government shall return any unused payments and interest accrued to the Japanese government after the completion of all related contracts.