The Japanese government reached a key cabinet decision on this year’s “Economic and Financial Management and Reform Fundamental Policy” on Friday, pledging to focus its energies on the digitization of government procedures while also working on disaster prevention and tourism policies.
Regarding inbound visitors to Japan, the policy states, “There is great potential in inbound visitors even in the post-COVID era, and the public and private sectors will work together to achieve an advanced tourism nation with a goal of reaching 60 million tourists by 2030.”
There was no specific mention of IRs in this year’s policy.
However, it does state, “The Annual Economic Policy 2020 places tackling the COVID-19 pandemic as an urgent task for the government in the current circumstances, so … we have narrowed the description to place focus on the general direction of future policy response.
“The items not entered into this policy that were included in the 2019 policy will continue to be implemented steadily.”
This suggests that promotion of Japan’s IR policy will continue.
Japan’s Annual Economic Policy 2019 stated, “We will steadily work on the formulation of the Basic Policy and similar, based on the Act on Promotion of Development of Specified Complex Tourist Facilities Areas, to promote the development of IR facilities that will create a highly internationally competitive and attractive long-stay tourism facility.
“In order to take all possible measures to tackle concerns surrounding casinos, we will establish a Casino Administration Committee and implement the highest standard of casino regulations in the world. We will implement thorough and comprehensive implementation of measures to prevent addiction such as problem gambling.”
This year’s policy named digitization of government procedures as the top priority given delays under the current model have become abundantly clear during COVID-19.
It also adds disaster prevention and mitigation as a pillar in response to frequent heavy rain disasters.