Shinzo Abe’s state funeral is even more expensive than the Queen’s. Here’s how much it will cost
There are 700 guests from 217 countries, including US Vice-President Kamala Harris and Indian PM Narendra Modi
The Japanese government is planning to spend a whopping 1.66bn yen at the funeral of former prime minister Shinzo Abe. The cost, however, can go up to 1.7 billion yen. This is even higher than the amount of money spent on the Queen's state funeral, which is £8m or 1.3bn yen, as cited by a Daily Mirror report.
Initially, the plan was to spend around 250 million yen for the funeral. Later Chief cabinet secretary, Hirokazu Matsuno, has confirmed that some 800 million yen is estimated to be spent on the policing of the event while hosting the dignitaries is expected to cost 600 million yen.
How the money will be spent?
A BBC report suggested, about half of the money is expected to go on tight security while another third will be used to host foreign visitors.
Overseas guests are arriving in Japan to meet the current Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. The three-day event has been dubbed "funeral diplomacy".
There are 700 guests from 217 countries, including US Vice-President Kamala Harris and Indian and Australian prime ministers Narendra Modi and Anthony Albanese. But when compared with the Queen's funeral, it has been highlighted that the late monarch's state funeral in London attracted most of the current global leaders while those attending Abe's are mostly former leaders.
Tokyo-based event organiser Murayama, which used to host an annual cherry blossom party where he faced allegations of cronyism, was the only bidder for the 176m yen state funeral and hence, won the contract.
As Japan's longest-serving prime minister whose life was cut short at age 67 in a shockingly violent - and rare - incident, Abe is only the second prime minister to get a state funeral. Even then 70% of the people are of the opinion that too much is being spent on the funeral.
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Business NewsNewsWorldShinzo Abe’s state funeral is even more expensive than the Queen’s. Here’s how much it will cost
First Published:25 Sep 2022, 07:50 PM IST
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