Osaka Mayor Ichiro Matsui announced at a Thursday press conference that an extra six months would be necessary for IR operators to submit all of their plans for the RFP process, and that realistically the coronavirus impact will result in a one or two year delay in the opening of the Yumeshima IR, perhaps to 2028.
The current plans call for the IR to open by the end of 2026. As recently as March Matsui had been aiming for an opening before the 2025 World Expo.
“The spread of the new coronavirus has made it impossible to meet with the business operators, and the conclusion of the agreement will be delayed, affecting the schedule,” Matsui noted. He also indicated that the municipal government had heard from the operator side that they would have difficulty meeting the current deadlines.
Only the consortium led by MGM Japan and the Orix Corporation are bidding for a partnership with the Osaka government.
Matsui also indicated that his belief is that the national government will likely extend the period that it will accept licensing proposals from local governments beyond the current July 30, 2021, deadline.
Empire Resorts must secure financing at attractive rates soon if it is to turn profitable and avoid the need for a further capital injection from Genting, Nomura said in a research note.
Wynn Macau is hosting a new edition of the "Wynn Guest Chef Series." China's leading chefs from across the country will descend upon Macau to take part in a series of fourteen events for three consecutive months.
In this April edition of Asia Gaming Briefings we take the pulse of how the North Asia jurisdictions of Japan, Korea and the Russian Far East have fared.
The world is bouncing back, or at least coming to grips with the fact that going forward not much will be the same as before. Commendably, this industry quickly understood the need to adapt to a new normal, and that the days of targeting the low hanging fruit of the VIP sector are gone.
Over the years, many of the answers have been remarkably prescient in their forecasts for the near-term direction of Asia’s gaming industry. However, we can safely say that no one came anywhere close to guessing what 2020 may have had in store.
