Archive

_2021-03-10
Hokkaido Governor Naomichi Suzuki met directly with Tomakomai Mayor Hirofumi Iwakura to reiterate that the prefecture will not be applying for an IR license in the national first round of applications ending in April 2022.

_2021-02-25
“A fool dies a thousand deaths; a wise man only one.” This common expression—a garbled version of something written by Shakespeare—might very well be applied to the prospect of IR development in Hokkaido. And indeed, the project has recently died...

_2021-02-03
Hope springs eternal in the minds of Tomakomai IR advocates. The answer delivered from the lips of Hokkaido Governor Naomichi Suzuki keeps coming back “no,” but what seems to be delivered to their ears is “maybe soon.”

_2021-01-21
Hope springs eternal in the minds of Tomakomai IR advocates. The answer delivered from the lips of Hokkaido Governor Naomichi Suzuki keeps coming back “no,” but what seems to be delivered to their ears is “maybe soon.”

_2021-01-18
Tomakomai city’s hopes of reentering the Japan IR race have been dashed again as Governor Naomichi Suzuki made clear at a press conference that his earlier rejection of participating in the first round of licensing still stands.

_2020-12-03
If an IR is one day built in Tomakomai city, it will certainly be due to the dogged persistence of its municipal government, which has put forward yet another set of proposals to sweeten the pot and to encourage Hokkaido Governor Naomichi Suzuki to change...

_2020-09-28
Kimihito Kamori, former chairman of Kamori Kanko, has been sentenced to ten months in prison, suspended for two years, for his part in bribing lawmake

_2020-06-15
The Tomakomai city government is still lobbying Hokkaido Governor Naomichi Suzuki to overturn his earlier verdict and to support the city’s IR devel

_2020-03-03
Rusutsu Mayor Tsunehachi Baya announced to the village council on Monday that he was freezing efforts to attract an IR, citing the 500 Dot Com bribery

_2020-02-19
Prospects that Hokkaido Prefecture will rejoin the IR race in the near future appear to have suffered a major blow after it was reported that the pref

_2020-01-12
On November 29 of last year, Hokkaido Governor Naomichi Suzuki announced that his prefecture would not be participating in the IR race, citing the several years it would take to complete environmental preparations at the Tomakomai site. However, parts...

_2019-12-05
Hokkaido Governor Naomichi Suzuki's decision to drop out of the Japan IR race represents the collapse of the strongest IR initiative outside of the Kansai and Kanto regions.

_2019-12-04
In what was nearly an inevitable move, the 1st Japan IR Expo in Hokkaido, scheduled to be held next week, has been cancelled by its organizers in the wake of Hokkaido Governor Naomichi Suzuki’s decision not to go forward with an IR bid at Tomakomai city.

_2019-11-28
Hokkaido Governor Naomichi Suzuki is expected to announce on Friday that his prefecture will not be going forward with an IR bid, abruptly ending what had seemed to many the strongest IR initiative within Japanese regional markets.

_2019-11-27
The clouds darkened over the prospects for a Hokkaido IR bid this week as the main conservative caucus in the Hokkaido Prefectural Assembly proved unable to coordinate a united stance after two days of talks.

_2019-11-25
Hokkaido Governor Naomichi Suzuki is nearing his decision on whether or not to pursue an IR bid at Tomakomai city, but even conservative political forces are having difficulty uniting behind a pro-IR policy.

_2019-08-07
The first Japan IR Expo in Hokkaido has been scheduled for December 11 and 12, 2019, highlighting continuing interest in Japan’s northernmost prefecture.

_2019-07-17
Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Keiichi Ishii has announced that the number of takeoff and landing slots at Hokkaido’s New Chitose Airport will be increased by 20 percent, effective next spring.

_2019-04-18
Outgoing Hokkaido governor promotes IR to successor