Debt-Strapped Japan Planning a No-Frills Olympics

[marmar]

(Bloomberg) Tokyo’s 2020 Olympic Games will be the first of a leaner type of competition that will limit spending on big-ticket venues to avoid alienating the public, Chief Executive Officer Toshiro Muto said, two months after debt-ridden Japan canceled plans for a futuristic main stadium.

The International Olympic Committee last year set out a new agenda that favors existing venues over purpose-built stadiums, as concerns mount in potential host countries over the burden of holding the event. Public anger over the cost of Tokyo’s flagship stadium swelling to $2 billion damped initial euphoria over the Games, prompting Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to scrap the design and seek new bids after trimming the budget by more than a third.

"It’s not going too far to say that Tokyo 2020 will be the first Games of its type," Muto, who heads the Tokyo Olympic committee and formerly served as deputy governor of the Bank of Japan, said in an interview at his office in Tokyo. "In Japan in particular, fiscal problems are very sensitive. Some people want this to be an opportunity to build stadiums as in the past, but if we keep on doing that, we will gradually lose public support. The IOC has a sense of crisis about this and we feel the same way."

Avoiding backlash

Japan is struggling to control a public debt more than twice the size of its $4.6 trillion economy, as social security costs spiral due to an aging population. With the risk of another recession as his Abenomics policies fail to boost growth in Asia’s second-biggest economy, Abe is looking to avoid a public backlash by keeping a cap on Olympic spending. ...................(more)

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-18/debt-strapped-japan-will-seek-cost-conscious-olympics-ceo-says

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. Good for them. nt