A cooperation agreement to be signed today between the UK and Japan could pave the way for UK contractors to win work on the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games and 2019 Rugby World Cup.
The Memorandum of Cooperation will be signed by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the London Olympic Park and signals a vote of confidence in the ability of UK companies to deliver on major projects.
The government’s UK Trade & Investment agency is now inviting firms interested in work on the projects, including SMEs, to get in touch for support and advice on the opportunities available.
Lord Livingston, minister for trade & investment, said: “I am delighted that Japan has signalled that it wants to use UK expertise to help deliver both the Tokyo Olympics and Rugby World Cup. The delivery of London 2012 on time and under budget has shown the world that the UK has a significant amount of expertise in staging large-scale events.”
Zaha Hadid’s stadium for the Japan Olympics will be located alongside Kenzo Tange’s iconic 1964 Olympic stadium in Yoyogi Park (above)
UK companies have already won £130m of contracts for the Brazil 2014 World Cup and the Rio 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games. More than 60 UK companies also won contracts for the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics, most of them mid-sized businesses.
One of the strengths of Tokyo’s bid to host the games is the compactness of the planned site, which will see roughly 75% of the sports venues located within 8km of the Olympic Village on the Harumi waterfront area of Tokyo Bay.
Twenty two of the 37 venues will be constructed specifically for the 2020 Games. New arenas will be constructed in downtown Tokyo as part of plans to save energy and reduce the need for transport investment.
The Olympic Village is due to be constructed alongside Tokyo’s harbour and will be converted into housing after the Games.
The event’s centrepiece will be an 80,000-seat national stadium designed by Zaha Hadid to host the opening and closing ceremonies, as well as athletics, paralympics, football and rugby events. The 70m-high building will feature a retractable roof shaped like a giant bicycle helmet and is intended to replace the existing Kasumigaoka National Stadium.
Hadid won a competition to design the stadium in November 2012, but late last year the Japan Sports Council announced that the design will be reduced in size by a quarter to 220,000 sq m from the initial plan of 290,000 sq m (nearly three times as large as the Olympic Stadium in London).
Estimated construction costs have also been cut to Y169.2bn (£0.98bn) from Y185.2bn (£1.1bn). Despite downsizing, the project still faces opposition from prominent local architects who have compared it to Beijing’s “Bird’s Nest” stadium, which has sat mostly empty since the 2008 Games.
Hadid’s building will be located alongside Kenzo Tange’s iconic 1964 Olympic stadium in Yoyogi Park, the main venue when Japan last hosted the Olympics, which will function as a handball arena this time around. Zaha Hadid Architects will also work on this building, renovating the structure and adding a new roof.
Two other venues from the 1964 games, the Nippon Budokan and the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium, will also be reused to provide venues for judo and table tennis.
The 2020 Games will run from 24 July to 9 August, and are seen by many as a chance to help Japan re-establish itself as a player in the world of global business. The Japanese economy has struggled for nearly two decades, and it is hoped that the Games will help spark a revival through renewed infrastructure and a boost to tourism.
Bilateral trade between the UK and Japan was worth £22.5bn in 2011, with 1,300 Japanese companies directly employing more than 140,000 people in the UK, plus tens of thousands more jobs in the supply chains.
