Japan Cuts Budget for National Stadium and Seeks Completion by IOC Deadline

The Japan government has decided to slash the costs for a new national stadium by 42 per cent and are aiming to meet the IOC’s January 2020 deadline to have the Olympic venue completed.

The cost of the stadium was originally set at 155 billion yen ($1.28 billion, £835bn) on Friday, down from the 265.1 billion yen price for the venue that was scrapped in July.

“We have in principle limited the functions of the facility to those necessary for competition under the concept of athlete-first, while keeping the level of the facility suitable as a main stadium for Olympic and Paralympic Games,” said Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at a meeting of ministers.

“As a result, we have managed to achieve a major cost reduction of more than 100 billion yen.”

The altered plan will see the stadium attendance reduced by 4,000 to 68,000, covered spectator seats and no roof.

Air conditioning will not be installed in the stadium as part of another cost-cutting measure.

The initial plan was for the stadium to be completed by April 2020 but this has been brought forward to January 2020 by the IOC after Japan’s problems.  

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