Okinawa Governor Gento Koga pressed the case for revising the Japan-US status of forces agreement at a news conference in Tokyo on November 9, taking questions on the issue from the US military's own newspaper.
Koga spoke at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan in Marunouchi, Tokyo. He took office on September 30 after winning the gubernatorial election held on September 13.
He named economic promotion and the reduction of the base burden as the priorities of his administration. Stars and Stripes, the US military's semi-official newspaper, whose readers are mainly US forces personnel in Japan, put two questions to him.
Income pledge
Koga said per-capita income in Okinawa remains the lowest in the country. In the election he pledged to double it to ¥5 million over the next 10 years, and to double take-home income in real terms by easing household costs.
The plan rests on raising the value of existing industries and creating new ones. Small and medium-sized firms, which make up 99% of businesses in the prefecture, would be pushed to adopt digital transformation and artificial intelligence. The prefecture would also deepen ties with GATEWAY 2050 PROJECTS, a growth strategy led by the business community.
Koga calls his concept the "new 5K economy": tourism, health, environment, ocean and startups. On tourism, he wants flights from Europe and the US as well as Asia, along with international conferences and resort weddings. The target is ¥2 trillion in annual tourism revenue within eight years, by raising spending per visitor.
Henoko and the SOFA
On the US bases concentrated in the prefecture, Koga stressed that removing the danger posed by Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Ginowan and returning the site early are priorities.
He said moving the air station outside the prefecture or overseas would have been preferable. No specific alternative to Henoko has been studied, and construction there is under way.
“I believe that proceeding with the Henoko relocation is the fastest way to remove the danger of Futenma, and I take the position of accepting it.”Gento Koga, Okinawa governor