Legislation Report: Japan IR
Japan IR Legislative Timeline Update
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By: Bay City Ventures Managing Director, Joji Kokuryo
wenty-three months since the passing of the Integrated Resort (IR) Implementation Act, Japan’s procedure continues to gradually move forward. However, there are still many major steps that must be accomplished for the gaming industry to lay its roots in this East Asian country. In order to understand the current timeline, it is vital to take note of the key components of the law. The central government issues a Basic Policy, or Fundamental Policy as some call it, that provides guidelines for the local governments and their IR operators to follow. The local governments, if they wish to apply for IR development approval, will also need to come up with their own Implementation Policy, which applies on top of the national Basic Policy. The IR operators will need to comply with both of these policies when making their bids to local governments. The central government’s Basic Policy had a draft version released last September and the final version was originally slated for an early 2020 release. Since
then, the release has been pushed back once to March, and after bribery scandals and COVID-19, the Basic Policy still remains in a draft state as of today. By government order, the Basic Policy must be finalized by July 26th, 2020, or two years within promulgation of the IR Implementation Act, unless a government order is made to change the date. The draft versions of the Implementation Policy for all the four current candidate sites, Osaka, Wakayama, Nagasaki and Yokohama, have been released, but they will remain drafts until the final version of the national Basic Policy is released. The local governments and IR operators have been working all this time with the assumption that there will not be major changes from the Basic Policy draft, and that fact has been a point of uncertainty that the operators and their investors have been dealing with since they first set their sights on Japan. The Basic Policy itself is just a set of guidelines and will not 30
provide all the taxing and casino regulation variables required to make an adequate ROI calculation, but without a final version, operators and investors are left making guesses, and that is for sure not what the gaming business is about. This delay in confirming the basic set of rules for the Japan IR is even more concerning, considering that the submission period for local governments and their IR partner to make applications for IR development approval runs from January 4th, 2021 to July 31st, 2021. This deadline
at the end of July is the most important date during the current phase of the Japan IR procedure. In order to meet this submission deadline, local governments will need to finalize their own Implementation Policy, complete an RFP procedure, select their IR partner and then finally create a business plan together for their submission to the central government. Local governments are assuming that six months is the bare minimum for planning and creating a submission package with their IR operator, and Wakayama prefecture recently pushing back their IR partner selection to next January is a perfect example of this assumption. As we stand today, despite the impact of COVID-19, the central government has no plans to change the national timeline, meaning we should see a final version of the Basic Policy by July 26, and the submission deadline for applications to the central government remains July 31st, 2021. www.casinolifemagazine.com
