The Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications has also recently made a major budget allocation to create a significant telecom infrastructure in Okinawa. All this will provide the backbone for the peace engineering business. Tourism accounts for another 10 percent of the economy. Manufacturing represents just six percent. These economic conditions have created a bloated local government bureaucracy.
Local unions conspire to keep out new businesses.
The two local newspapers, three local banks, and one beer company in Okinawa operate as monopolies. Okinawa has missed out on much of Japan's prosperity. Because of the large military presence, land prices are artificially high. Medical care is probably the poorest in Japan, and divorce rates are the highest in the country. Recent polls find that 60 percent of Okinawans continue to support the US military presence in the islands.