Jan 29 12:03 AM US/EasternTOKYO, Jan. 29 (AP) - (Kyodo) — The government on Friday set up a liaison office at the Cabinet Secretariat that will open a branch in Okinawa Prefecture to collect information and requests from local figures to better deal with the issues of U.S. military bases and economic revitalization.
The move follows Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano's visit to the southernmost prefecture earlier this month, when Okinawa Gov. Hirokazu Nakaima requested that the central government work to increase its ties with Okinawa in connection with the issue of where to relocate the U.S. Marines' Futemma Air Station.
"We will make it a place to hear the voices of local leaders to better grasp the current situation in Okinawa," Hirano said at a news conference. "We will collect information from ministries and agencies in a crosscutting manner."
A number of central government agencies have already posted people in Okinawa and gather information there, but such information has not always been shared well among them.
"We will build a structure that will allow us to consolidate information at the prime minister's office," Hirano said.
Hirano chairs a government panel exploring alternatives to an existing plan to move the base in Ginowan to the less populated city of Nago, where an opponent of the plan beat an incumbent in the city's mayoral election on Sunday.
The branch office will be located at the Okinawa General Bureau, a Cabinet Office outpost in the capital city of Naha.
Japan is reviewing the Futemma relocation plan, agreed upon between Japan and the United States in 2006 as part of a broader agreement on the realignment of U.S. forces in the country, saying that it will reach a conclusion by the end of May.
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