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• Agency's Pamphlet

About JEHDRA

JEHDRA (Japan Expressway Holding and Debt Repayment Agency) aims to reduce people’s burden relating to expressways and support successfulimplementations of the expressway business of the Companies ( East Nippon Expressway Co., Ltd. (NEXCO East) , Central Nippon Expressway Co., Ltd. (NEXCO Central) , West Nippon Expressway Co., Ltd. (NEXCO West) , Metropolitan Expressway Co., Ltd. , Hanshin Expressway Co., Ltd. and Honshu-Shikoku Bridge Expressway Co., Ltd. (HSBE) ) , by holding and leasing expressway assets and repaying debts rapidly and reliably.

President's Message

 Since its founding in 2005, the Japan Expressway Holding and Debt Repayment Agency (hereinafter “Agency”) has been providing support for the expansion and maintenance of expressway services, one of the infrastructures essential to the industry and lifestyle of Japan, while also holding responsibility for asset and debt management through the procurement of funds and repayment on debts that support these activities.

 In October 2024, the Agency entered the 19th year since its founding. During this period, expressway development has steadily progressed, with the total length in service expanding from 8,948 km at the time of the Agency’s launch to 10,458 km at the end of FY2023. The scale of debt repayment has remained around 4 trillion yen until the early 2010s and has been at approximately 3.5 trillion yen since the 2020s. Meanwhile, the scale of funding procurement has shrunk from 3 trillion yen in the late 2000s to 1 trillion yen in the 2020s. As a result of debt reduction, the annual interest burden has decreased from about 600 billion yen initially to approximately 240 billion yen.

 The Agency has undertaken a total of approximately 800 bond issuances to date, striving to expand its investor base through consistent engagement with the market via IR activities. Additionally, it has taken measures to mitigate future interest rate increase risks by diversifying issuance terms to include long-term and super-long-term bonds and issuing social bonds（bonds for social contribution）.

 On the other hand, while possessing expressway assets and leasing them to expressway companies, the Agency has been making thorough considerations for the maintenance and improvement of comfort and safety in the service levels of our expressways, while at the same time taking action to ensure reliable debt repayments in the future through revenue from the leases of such assets. This enabled the Agency to generally reduce the debt balance by a little under 10 trillion yen since the founding of the Agency, though this trend varied from year to year.

 Going forward, we anticipate increased uncertainties in the business environment due to changes in the financial environment, international affairs, and the intensification and frequency of natural disasters. Amid expectations of increased market volatility with the end of the negative interest rate policy in March 2024, heralding the arrival of a "world with interest rates," debt management with a long-term outlook on financial balance is recognized as the Agency's greatest operational challenge, Furthermore, to ensure the future functionality of expressways, "Partial Amendment of the Act on Special Measures for Road Construction and Improvement Projects and the Act on the Japan Expressway Holding and Debt Repayment Agency, Independent Administrative Agency" was enacted and enforced in 2023. Following this, we reflected in the March 2024 agreement with expressway companies the extension of toll collection periods, renewal projects for fundamental performance recovery, and evolution projects based on social demands such as national resilience.
 We will continue to work together with the government and expressway companies to ensure proper management and functional enhancement of expressways.

 The role of expressways in Japan's economy and society is becoming increasingly important as globalization and IT progress, and social risks such as natural disasters expand. The Agency will continue to contribute to providing safe and highly convenient expressway services at appropriate toll levels, reducing the burden on the public, through the formulation and implementation of action plans to address business challenges and by promoting the development of human resources to become a professional group in both road and financial management.

Masaru Takamatsu

President,
Japan Expressway Holding and Debt Repayment Agency