Japan spends over $2 billion to build stadiums for the 2020 Olympics.

(Baonghean.vn) - On Monday, June 29th, Japanese Sports Minister Hakubun Shimomura announced that the government has reached an agreement with two domestic construction companies to build a "national stadium" in Tokyo in preparation for the 2020 Winter Olympics. The estimated cost for the construction is over 250 billion yen (equivalent to over 2 billion USD).

A model of the national stadium in Tokyo for the 2020 Olympic Games, photo AFP.

Speaking to the press, Mr. Shimomura announced, "The project is worth 252 billion yen. Of that, approximately 20 billion yen will be raised from private capital to reduce the tax burden on citizens." Notably, the cost of building the stadium has increased by 90 billion yen compared to the initial estimate. It is known that in 2012, in the design competition for the Tokyo 2020 stadium, British architect Zaga Hadid won the project with a cost of 162.5 billion yen.

After its approval, the project faced widespread criticism for its increased costs and architectural design. In response to strong public backlash, the Ministry of Sports decided to scale back the project to reduce costs and save time. Compared to the original design, the stadium will remove the retractable roof and reduce the number of seats from 80,000 to 65,000. Construction is scheduled to begin in October 2015 and be completed in May 2019.

Chu Thanh – according to Le Monde, June 29