The government and ruling coalition on Monday endorsed a privatization scheme for semigovernmental expressway operators that effectively fails to put the brakes on the completion of unfinished sections of the planned 9,342-km thruway network.
The scheme represents a deviation from a proposal issued a year ago by an advisory panel to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi that calls for debt repayment to be prioritized over the construction of new roads.
While the advisory panel stated last December that the privatized firms should use toll revenues primarily to repay debts, Monday's scheme says they should use toll revenues as collateral to raise funds for expressway construction.