On August 16, 2010, Nikkei reported plans for a public-private fund. The author argues that PFI schemes cannot restore Japan’s lost 20 years. The Kansai Airport issue is not about financing but about reviving Osaka’s vitality. He proposes dispersing Japan’s private TV networks across seven major regions, leaving only NHK for national broadcasting. This, not superficial funding schemes, is the true path to decentralization and economic recovery.

The author asserts that superficial economic measures like “public-private funds” and “PFI” are not the solution to Japan’s “Lost 20 Years.” Using the struggles of Kansai International Airport as an example, he argues that the real issue is not financial but rather the over-centralization in Tokyo and the resulting loss of vitality in the regions. The author proposes that the fundamental solution is to decentralize the Japanese media, especially the six commercial TV stations, to achieve true regional revitalization. He also criticizes Tokyo-centric comedy, represented by the Yoshimoto agency, as a symptom of Osaka’s decline.

Yet Again, PFI (Private Finance Initiative)?
August 16, 2010

This morning’s Nikkei front page: “Toward the Creation of a Public-Private Fund.”
When will they ever understand? Recovering Japan’s lost 20 years is not about such superficial measures, not about some three-letter acronym.
The issue with Kansai International Airport is not about how PFI manages funding. The problem is not PFI. It is crystal clear that the real issue is reviving the vitality of Osaka, which until twenty years ago declared loudly, “Tokyo is nothing compared to us.”
My proposal: disperse the mass media, especially the six private TV networks, into the seven major regions of Hokkaido, Tohoku, Chubu, Kansai, Chugoku, Kyushu, and Shikoku, plus one additional. Change the centralized nation that you created.
Without this, no form of regional decentralization or regional revitalization will ever exist. That, in fact, is what private broadcasting was originally meant to be.
As for the “center,” or Tokyo, it is enough that only NHK provides nationwide broadcasting with programs backed by world-class intelligence and true freedom, delivering genuine visual beauty.
The collapse of Osaka was inversely proportional to the rise of Yoshimoto comedy. But in reality, that comedy industry is nothing more than Tokyo-oriented. The income difference between comedians who made it in Tokyo and those who stayed in Osaka is astronomical. In such an Osaka, in such a Kansai, Kansai International Airport could never pay off.
PFI was being mentioned even at the very bottom. Did PFI raise GDP by even one yen? Needless to say, it did not.