Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said on Friday that the government hopes relevant parties will keep aiming for the full completion of a magnetic levitation train line due to connect Tokyo and Osaka by 2037, after an expected delay due to the stalled construction of the line’s Tokyo-Nagoya portion.

During a Friday meeting with Central Japan Railway (JR Central) President Shunsuke Niwa and governors of eight prefectures that the maglev line cuts through, Kishida said the central government will work with them to achieve an early completion.

“The government is committed to continuing our efforts toward the earliest possible full opening of the (maglev line) as a national project,” he said, adding that he hopes the governors will cooperate from their “respective standpoints.”