Expo 2025 Can’t Sell Tickets, Might Need Japanese Taxpayer Bailout

Will the World Expo 2025 in Osaka be a financial bust? It’s trending that way — and Japanese taxpayers might be on the hook for it.

Ask your average Japanese citizen what their top gripe is today, and the answer will likely be taxes. As real wages remain frozen and prices continue to rise, people are complaining that the government continues to hike consumption taxes and health care payments, putting even more of a squeeze on the average taxpayer.

That’s why the recent news about World Expo 2025 Osaka Kansai isn’t sitting well with local residents. Many were already outraged when an Osaka city official said the current burden for the event would come out to around 27,000 yen (USD $172) per resident.

Now, it seems the event is well short of meeting its goals for ticket sales — and taxpayers are expected to pick up the tab.

We’ve covered before how sales for the event were very slow among foreign tourists as well as residents of Japan. Things haven’t gotten any better. Recent reports say that, since selling the expected 7 million tickets within the business community, sales have plummeted.

Tickets were expected to cover 80 percent of the event’s 11.6 billion yen ($737M) cost. If the prefecture doesn’t make its goal, it’ll have to…