Hiroshi Miyata calculates 324 billion yen and 23,000 jobs worth of missed economic benefit from Okinawa Defense Bureau placing construction orders outside of the prefecture

Hiroshi Miyata calculates 324 billion yen and 23,000 jobs worth of missed economic benefit from Okinawa Defense Bureau placing construction orders outside of the prefecture

Hiroshi Miyata


August 25, 2020 Ryukyu Shimpo

Hiroshi Miyata, research fellow at Okinawa University and Okinawa International University, has been analyzing the Okinawa Defense Bureau’s (ODB) construction costs, noting that around half of their construction orders were placed with companies outside of Okinawa, and has concluded that between 2014 and 2019 the economic ripple effect amounted to losses of around 324.8 billion yen, and over 23,000 jobs. Miyata indicates, “If the entirety of the expenditures had flowed through Okinawa, it should have created around that amount of economic benefit.”

Miyata based his calculations on an itemized list of expenditures both within and outside of Okinawa prefecture for the initial contract amount, as provided to the Ryukyu Shimpo by the ODB. The money for base construction has been identified as “mainland reflux,” an economic structure where the funds flow out of the prefecture to large firms. Miyata says, “There is a fundamental problem when public works funds related to the base are not circulated within the prefecture. The burden of the bases is born by Okinawa, but the profits are enjoyed by the mainland.”

(English translation by T&CT and Sam Grieb)

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