Dec 25 08:55 AM US/EasternTOKYO, Dec. 25 (AP) - (Kyodo) — Japan decided Friday not to earmark expenses in its fiscal 2010 defense budget for the construction of a new airfield in Okinawa to replace the U.S. Marine Corps' Futemma Air Station as the country is not yet able to reach a conclusion on the transfer of the base.
Of total defense spending worth 4,766.8 billion yen for the next fiscal year starting April, the government has only allocated 5.3 billion yen, down 4.1 billion yen from the previous year, for the transfer of the Futemma facility located in a downtown residential area of Ginowan, Okinawa.
A Finance Ministry official said, however, when the relocation issue is finally settled, the government will be ready to respond to the situation by either tapping its reserves as well as 1 trillion yen set aside for obligations for unspecified use, or allocating necessary expenses in an extra budget for fiscal 2010.
Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa gave an assurance that necessary expenses for the Futemma transfer will be procured from the funds pooled by the government.
The 5.3 billion yen consists of spending that must be set aside regardless of the decision on where the airfield will eventually be moved, the official said.
The amount includes expenses for contracts related to the Futemma move that were already signed in fiscal 2008 and continued environmental assessment costs related to the planned relocation site in Nago, also in Okinawa.
Japan and the United States agreed in 2006 to relocate the heliport functions of Futemma to the less densely populated area in Nago by 2014.
But the new Japanese government led by the Democratic Party of Japan has floated the idea of moving the facility out of Okinawa or even abroad to lessen the burden of hosting bases on local people and has set next May as the deadline for drawing a conclusion on the thorny issue.
Defense Ministry officials said if the government decides to stick to the current plan to transfer Futemma to Nago, around an additional 2.7 billion yen would be required for design costs and other expenses for the new airfield.
The total costs for the project under the bilateral accord to reclaim a coastal area in Nago to build new V-shaped runways would reach 142 billion yen, they said.
Along with the Futemma transfer, the 2006 pact covers a broader realignment of U.S. forces that involves moving around 8,000 Marines and some 9,000 dependants from Okinawa to the U.S. territory of Guam by 2014.
In the fiscal 2010 budget, the government allocated 47.2 billion yen, up 12.6 billion yen from the year before, for the construction of buildings to accommodate military personnel in Guam to prepare for the transfer.
When other expenses are added up, such as 27 billion yen for the transfer of aircraft from the U.S. Navy's Atsugi base in Kanagawa Prefecture to the Marines' Iwakuni Air Station in Yamaguchi Prefecture, the nation's entire spending for the realignment will reach 90.9 billion yen, up 30.7 billion yen from the year before.
The Defense Ministry officials said the 27 billion yen will likely include spending to acquire land in Iwakuni to build housing complexes for U.S. military personnel and their families, who will move from Atsugi in line with the aircraft transfer.
In consideration of local opposition to the construction of apartments for military personnel, Kitazawa told reporters, "If necessary, I will go there and talk to residents."
Overall defense spending in fiscal 2010 will be 0.2 percent lower than the previous year, marking the eighth consecutive yearly decline as Tokyo continues to rein in expenses amid economic woes.
The Finance Ministry said, however, if monthly child allowances of 13,000 yen for around 200,000 children of Defense Ministry officials and Self-Defense Forces personnel are included as part of personnel expenditures, the entire defense budget will reach 4,790.3 billion yen, up 0.3 percent from fiscal 2009 for the first increase in eight years.
The government ministries and agencies respectively booked the monthly child allowances as personnel expenses, separately from the health ministry's budget for the general public.
The government decided not to earmark expenses to boost the number of SDF officers and scrapped a plan to build a center in downtown Tokyo to promote Japan's contribution to U.N. peacekeeping operations to trim expenses.
It also slashed host nation support for U.S. forces stationed in Japan by 4.7 billion yen from a year earlier to 188.1 billion yen in the fiscal 2010 budget.
Meanwhile, the government allocated 120.8 billion yen to build a new helicopter-carrying destroyer that will replace the 5,200-ton destroyer Shirane, which has been in service for 30 years, and earmarked 18.7 billion yen to acquire 13 new tanks.
The envisioned 248-meter-long, 19,500-ton destroyer will be the largest in the Maritime Self-Defense Force and apparently aimed at helping to keep China's active maritime activities in check.
The Defense Ministry expects to utilize it to respond better to large- scale disasters, evacuation of Japanese during overseas emergencies and international peace cooperation activities.
The fiscal 2010 defense budget also includes appropriations of 63.9 billion yen to upgrade systems for Patriot Advanced Capability interceptors for ballistic missile defense to respond to the missile threat posed by North Korea.
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