Japan’s Defense Ministry on Tuesday invited tenders for work related to the construction of a controversial replacement facility for a U.S. Marine base in Okinawa despite local opposition to the base relocation.
The ministry’s Okinawa Defense Bureau hopes to sign the required contracts by the end of March to build a new base in a coastal area of Nago, where functions of the Marine Corps’ Futenma Air Station will be transferred from a crowded residential area of Ginowan under a Japan-U.S. accord.
The bureau plans to spend a year on exploratory boring and designing of the facility before starting land reclamation work in the spring of 2015.
[mappress]
Press Release, January 22, 2014