Yubari, the Hokkaido city that went bankrupt in 2006, will finish repaying its ¥35.3bn debt by the end of this fiscal year, 20 years after its fiscal collapse. The city, national government and Hokkaido prefecture held their final joint meeting before the repayment last month, on October 30.
"We see this as standing at the next starting line," Mayor Tsukasa Atsuya, 61, said. Yubari once prospered as a coal town and later pinned its revival on its Yubari melon and tourism, but the collapse of the bubble economy and the long slump hit it hard. In 2006 it was driven into fiscal bankruptcy with about ¥35.3bn in debt.
Bankruptcy stripped the city of the right to run its own projects without national approval. In 2016 Naomichi Suzuki, then mayor and now governor of Hokkaido, substantially revised the fiscal plan and won the national government's consent.
"Japan's highest burden, lowest service"
To rebuild its finances the city raised taxes and facility fees across the board, and was described as having "Japan's highest resident burden and lowest services." One resident recalled hesitating over a single flower: "Even to plant one flower in the garden, I wondered whether it was all right to plant a rose like this in a bankrupt city."
Six elementary schools and three junior high schools were each merged into one. The city also pushed "compaction," concentrating housing and public facilities in the center. Over the 20 years since bankruptcy the population fell from 13,000 to 5,600.
What repayment changes
The mayor said the city wants to cut its fixed asset tax rate to the standard 1.4%, from the current 1.45%. Fees for certificates such as residence records and registered seal proofs, now ¥500, are also expected to return to their previous levels.
Staff pay will improve too. "We discussed in today's three-way talks that the current 5% monthly salary cut will not be applied from fiscal 2027," Atsuya said.
Younger residents see new possibilities. "When people think of Yubari, they think we're trying to make something signature," said Haruto Suzuki, a third-year student at Yubari High School. "Yubari isn't just melons. I want this to be a chance for people to learn about Yubari, not just as a place with few people but as a place with food this good."
The mayor said many problems remain. "I want to push ahead so that citizens think of building this town as their own affair, and so that we can work with a sense of purpose in solving those problems."