Japan Studies Reducing Costs of the 2020 Olympic Games

The Tokyo government is studying how to reduce the costs of the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games, while doubts are growing over the negative implications these costs will have for the Japanese economy and society.

Now the controversy in the public opinion is more intense after knowing the intentions of Governor Yuriko Koike to use geothermal air conditioning competitions, expensive to install but with low maintenance costs.

Koike said that there is a need to differentiate between cost and investment for the future.

She said that it is impossible to install geothermal heating and air conditioning systems later.

The governor also spoke at a symposium on the Tokyo Olympics and the environment.

According to the NHK state chain, she is confident that the price of the Olympics will be reduced, as several proposals on the review of the places of competition were presented.

However, she acknowledged that some people are incredulous about the original estimate.

Meanwhile, doubts in the experts about the not-so-good consequences that the final expenses will have for the economy, and therefore for the society of Japan, are increasing, especially, in the present moment, defined as growth negative.

Over the past decade, according to official reports, recessions are recurring, with declines in Japanese gross domestic product for all of 2009 and 2011.

Last year the economic growth figures were also not very encouraging (0.2 percent).

Experts say Tokyo, as the first key to the analysis, continues to present a chronic stagnation problem that has lasted since the 1990s.

While a 1.4 percent rally is expected for 2016, the Japanese economy will grow only three tenths by 2017, according to the latest data released by the Bank of Japan (BOJ).

In this context, public opinion increasingly raises controversy over spending for the Olympics, which although almost always represent an important source of income for the host country, but is not clear that it is entirely sustainable for Japan, unless the currently questioned economic policy of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe finally escape the so-called damn binomial recession-deflation.