The Japan Expressway Holding and Debt Repayment Agency was established in 2005 with six privatized expressway companies within the privatization framework of the highway public corporations. The missions are to hold and maintain the expressway assets in a good condition and to repay inherited debts from the highway public corporations and incremental debts due to new construction of expressway assets. We commit the steady and full repayment of the debts within 45 years from the beginning as well as maintaining the safe and high quality expressway assets working closely with the six expressway companies. The repayment scheme is based on utilization of the fees paid by the expressway companies for the lease of the expressway assets. Further, we exercise our authority as a road administrator in a timely and appropriate manner, in cooperation with expressway companies, in order to ensure safe and efficient operation of the expressways. Also, we care for detailed maintenance and management works for the assets in accordance with each regional condition to hand over safe and quality expressways to the next generation.
Interest rate hike is the most critical risk for the repayment. We have been carefully dealing with the risk through effective liability management such as issuing ultra-long-term bonds during the recent historical low interest rate period. As a result, we have been outperforming the debt repayment all the way from the beginning. The current balance is well below its planned number.
Especially for this year, we were working aggressively in the following efforts to correspond to the crisis situation after the Great East Japan Earthquake and to support restoration efforts from the earthquake.
First, we exercised our authority as a road administrator in coordination with concerned parties promptly and appropriately to ensure the urgent use of expressways for emergency vehicles as well as those who were responding to the nuclear power plant accident.
Second, we temporarily transferred our central operational function from Tokyo head office to Osaka branch office to ensure the business continuity of our mission critical administrator function to control expressway traffic restrictions across Japan regardless of expected major power outage in Tokyo due to the nuclear power plant accident.
Third, we revised business execution plans according to the “Revised Measures to Promote Effective Utilization of Expressways” including discontinuation of 1000-yen upper limit for expressway toll on weekends in order to restore 250 billion yen as a part of the earthquake restoration budget to the national treasury based on the “Act on Special Measures concerning Finance Resource Keeping to correspond to the Great East Japan Earthquake.”
In addition to the above efforts, we have been applying toll-free special measure to the disaster victims’ vehicles and vehicles engaging in rehabilitation and reconstruction assistance in Tohoku region expressways since this June.
Accountability is another important responsibility for the agency. We actively disclose business and operational information through our website such as debt repayment plan/performance comparison tables, annual maintenance reports and revenue/expenditure result of each route regardless of statutory requirements to ensure transparency of our operation.
We will continue to do our best efforts to realize effective and efficient operation of expressway business while responding in a prompt and proper manner to the government initiatives that will support earthquake victims, restore the affected area and recover and grow Japanese economy. With your continuous support and guidance, we will make every effort to meet our commitments.
Hirotada Seyama
President,
Japan Expressway Holding and Debt Repayment Agency
November 2011