The Land, Infrastructure and Transport Ministry is considering easing the costs prefectural governments would have to bear to build expressways that a privatized Japan Highway Public Corp. would be unable to construct, ministry sources said Wednesday.
Under a new policy, the state would direct the building of the expressways that are part of the 11,520-km expanse of "high-speed national roads" now being built or planned.
The ministry is also studying ways to increase state funds earmarked for expressway construction beginning in the next fiscal year, the sources said.