INTERVIEW: Koike Objects to Bolstering Reallocation of Tax Revenues

August 2, 2018

Tokyo- Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike has objected to the central government's plan to beef up an existing system in which some taxes collected in the Japanese capital are allocated to local governments with small tax revenues.

"The biggest point of the argument is not over (local governments) competing within the whole pie (Japan), but on how to enlarge the pie," Koike said in an interview with Jiji Press on Wednesday, before celebrating the start of her second year as governor on Thursday.

She also questioned the progress of the regional revitalization program proposed by the administration of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

With Japan in a tight fiscal situation, measures to bolster the system of allocating some of the Tokyo metropolitan government's revenues related to corporate taxes, totaling over 1.8 trillion yen, to other municipalities are expected to become one of the pillars for Japan's fiscal 2019 tax system reform package.

Such moves are part of the central government's efforts to reduce gaps between local governments.

Koike said that while many criticize "unevenly distributed" tax revenues, the current system of state tax revenue allocations to local governments is fulfilling the role of correcting disparities just fine.

"I have no choice but to question Japan's sustainability if the pie (of tax revenues) is simply moved from here to there," she said, disputing the central government's measures to correct the excessive concentration of people and industry in Tokyo.

Meanwhile, Koike emphasized the need for the metropolitan government to step up its measures to cope with the fierce heat, which is an issue of concern for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games.

On finishing her term as governor on July 30, 2020, during the Tokyo Olympics, she only said that she will work toward resolving issues one at a time for now.

Koike, who created confusion by postponing the transfer of the functions of the aging Tsukiji wholesale food market in Tokyo's Chuo Ward to Toyosu in neighboring Koto Ward when she took office, declared the new site safe on Tuesday.

"We need to prepare an environment that will allow (people related to the new market) to continue working without interruption immediately after the (Toyosu) market opens in October," the governor said.

Elsewhere in the interview, Koike touched on the death of a girl in a major earthquake in northern Osaka Prefecture, western Japan, in June. The nine-year-old girl was crushed to death under a collapsed concrete block wall of her municipal elementary school in the city of Takatsuki.

"If (local municipalities) replace block walls with wooden walls, using wood from all over Japan, it will lead to forest conservation and flood control," she said.

Koike revealed that she plans to share her suggestion with other regions as well. Jiji Press