Kyushu IR Promotion Council Will Seek to Boost Local Economy

Hodo Nakamura, governor of Nagasaki prefecture, stated that the Kyusu IR Promotion Council would be set up in late January or early February. Mr Nakamura commented on the likely date for setting up the administrative body during a Tuesday plenary session of the prefectural assembly.

Buy Locally to Boost Local Economy

The purpose of the promotion council is to connect the operator the Nagasaki prefecture will select to partner it for the casino project with small-to-medium-size enterprises (SMEs) in the Kyushu region and provide a boost for the local economy through the purchases of goods and services by the casino company from the local SMEs. The chairman of the Kyushu Economic Federation, Yutaka Aso, will head the promotion council.

Nagasaki prefecture, a potential candidate for 1 of 3 available nation-wide slots for integrated casino resorts, announced last month the restart of its request-for-proposal (RFP) process for the selection of a private sector partner to team up with prefecture for the development of a casino complex. According to the new timetable, the RFP is set to re-launch in January having been temporarily suspended in September.

In September, Nagasaki prefecture made an announcement that based on information from multiple sources, the national government was set to delay the IR project, for a period between 6 months to 1 year, and, accordingly, Nagasaki decided to halt indefinitely its RFP process for the selection of a private-sector partner.

The IR Casino Site

The prefecture released in April its Kyushu-Nagasaki IR Basic Concept, in which it explained in details the basic tenets of the IR project, including its potential and goals, what facilities should be built and how they are expected to function, as well as measures to address concerns related to gambling addiction.

The document outlined that the prefecture selected to develop its IR casino project, should it be granted one of the available slots for integrated casino resorts, in the area nearly the Huis Ten Bosch theme park. Strategically located to attract foreign visitors in addition to the local ones, and in an area populated with 1 billion people within a 1,500 km radius, the 31 hectares of land present huge potential for the project and would surely lure any eventual private sector partner.

The IR casino property is estimated to generate between 6.9 billion to 9.3 billion of annual visitations, while the projected cost for the development of the IR casino will be between JPY 350 billion and JPY 460 billion /$3.2 billion to $4.2 billion/.