Tokyo Report: Capital Relocation Plan Going Nowhere

Tokyo, March 23 (Jiji Press)--A gigantic project to relocate the functions of Japan's capital from Tokyo, touted as a plan to "change the shape of the nation," is on the verge of extinction.

Prime Minister Taro Aso told parliament in February that
parliamentary discussions on the relocation will continue, taking into
account the possibility of a major disaster hitting Tokyo.
But lawmakers have virtually suspended deliberations on the project
since 2004.
Talks on relocating Japan's capital gathered pace in the 1990s in
response to criticisms about the excessive concentration of government,
business and other functions in Tokyo and skyrocketing land prices in the
capital amid an economic bubble.
In December 1999, a government advisory panel picked
Tochigi-Fukushima and two other regions as candidate sites and asked
parliament to make the final choice.
After the regional governments concerned started competing fiercely
among themselves and involved lawmakers from local constituencies, the
selection process became tangled.
To make matters worse for advocates of capital relocation, Japan
was hit by a long-lasting recession that the government tackled with huge
spending on pump-priming measures.
Faced with the subsequent deterioration in the government's
finances, one senior official of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure,
Transport and Tourism said, "We can no longer afford to discuss the
dream-like plan of relocating the capital."
In April 2004, a joint committee of both chambers of parliament
confirmed that research and studies on the relocation should continue. But
no major related activities have since taken place in Japan's parliament.
Campaigns by local governments aiming for their regions to be the
new capital have also fallen silent.
Reflecting the lost momentum, the land ministry has cut its fiscal
2009 budget for public relations activities related to the relocation
project to a meager 48 million yen, down sharply from 235 million yen in
fiscal 2008, which ends on March 31.
A budget of more than 100 million yen for a project that has not
been fully discussed cannot win "the understanding of taxpayers," says a
senior ministry official.
But as the act for relocation of the Diet and other organizations,
enacted in December 1992, is still in force, the ministry has to maintain a
budget and personnel for the project, another senior official says.
Nevertheless, in the circumstances, the project appears likely to
be quietly shelved.