Local News

The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications released a survey of public-private sector partnerships and public corporations in Kyushu and Yamaguchi Prefecture showing that the local governments with a stake in those companies have indemnity contracts with financial institutions for 170 of them, 21 of which have debt exceeding their assets. The debt covered by all these contracts amounts to 30.8 billion yen. If these companies were to go bankrupt, their losses might have to be covered by funds from the general accounts of the participating governments, which might force a curtailment of other services.