OSAKA - Eight years after it opened to great fanfare, Kansai International Airport looks likely to get a second runway in 2007, even as its financial problems continue to mount.

Despite opposition from many in the Finance Ministry, as well as foreign airlines, Kansai officials spent most of 2002 pushing for the completion of a second runway, begun in 1999, in 2007. The airport will mark its eighth anniversary Wednesday.

After intense debate earlier this year, the Land, Infrastructure, and Transport Ministry announced in late August that it would seek over 100 billion from the 2003 fiscal year budget to finish the runway as scheduled.