Minister wants no roof for Tokyo 2020 stadium to cut cost

Hakubun Shimomura, Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, and Minister of Olympic and Paralympic Games of Japan, speaks during The New Context for Japan event in the Swiss mountain resort of Davos January 22, 2015. REUTERS/Ruben Sprich

TOKYO (Reuters) - Tokyo's sparkling new National Stadium, the centre piece for the 2020 Olympic Games and 2019 rugby World Cup, should ditch its plan for a retractable roof to save money, Japan's sports minister proposed on Monday.

Hakubun Shimomura added that he wanted around 35 percent of the seats at the 80,000 seat stadium to be temporary ones in another cost-cutting measure and also to shorten construction time at the 170 billion yen ($1.42 billion) facility.