Japan Press Weekly

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2007 February 7 - 13 [US FORCES]

Japan’s major builders to profit from 2.6 billion-dollar home construction project for U.S. military personnel in Guam

The Japanese government is planning to have major Japanese general contractor construction companies build Guam housing complexes for U.S. military personnel and their families moving in as part of the relocation of the U.S. Marine Corps units from Okinawa to the U.S. territory.

Large construction companies are capitalizing on the extraordinary plan to construct military facilities in a foreign territory with Japanese tax money as a rare opportunity to make large profits.

This project to build some 3,500 housing units for U.S. military personnel and their families will cost up to 2.55 billion dollars (about 306 billion yen), which is equivalent to 87.4 million yen per unit, extravagant compared to the average cost of about 30 million yen for constructing houses for U.S. personnel in Japan.

The Japanese and U.S. governments agreed that Japan should pay 6.1 billion dollars (about 732 billion yen), which is about 60 percent of the total cost of 10.3 billion dollars (about 1,236 billion yen) said to be needed to relocate 8,000 U.S. marines and their 9,000 family members from Okinawa to Guam.

In reality, however, only 2,000 to 3,000 U.S. marines in Okinawa will be moving to Guam and the rest will relocate to Guam from other areas, mainly from Hawaii.

Japanese tax money is going to be generously used for the strengthening of U.S. base functions in Guam, which has nothing to do with any reduction in Okinawans’ base burdens.