Japan is pressing ahead with plans to hold the delayed Tokyo Olympic games this year despite the Covid-19 pandemic but has banned overseas spectators, undercutting the typical boost to jet fuel demand from the event.
The Japanese organisers have agreed with the Olympics and Paralympics committee chiefs to hold the Tokyo games in July-August without overseas visitors, after accepting they would not be able to guarantee entry for foreign spectators. The organisers are expected to start discussions next month on whether to limit the number of local spectators at each event.
The Olympics are scheduled to open on 23 July following a one-year delay caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. The organisers had been planning to sell around 630,000 tickets to overseas Olympics and Paralympics spectators.
Japan is continuing its battle to contain the Covid-19 pandemic and manage the risks of new variants. The government yesterday lifted a second state of emergency but is maintaining its entry ban on foreign visitors for the time being. The state of emergency was in effect across the country's major business and industrial areas for more than two months and helped to reduce the number of daily Covid-19 infections by around 80pc from the 8 January peak of 7,844, according to the government.
But many preventive measures against Covid-19 are being left in place on signs of a rebound in infections, particularly those linked with new variants of the coronavirus. Japan recorded 1,516 infections on 20 March, taking the total since the outbreak started to over 450,000, according to the health ministry.
The unprecedented ban on overseas spectators at the Olympics will further weigh on jet fuel demand, as well as Japan's economic outlook. Japan started rolling out its Covid-19 vaccine programme last month but its economy is only expected to return to pre-pandemic levels next year. Domestic jet fuel demand fell by 48pc from a year earlier to 41,000 b/d in January, according to government figures.
The Japanese economy last year posted its first annual decline since 2009, despite a solid recovery late in the year from a recession triggered by an increase in the sales tax and the Covid-19 crisis.
