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The Japan Coast Guard will include $270,000 in its budget request for 2006 to build the lighthouse and hopes to complete it by the end of March 2007, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported Thursday.

Okino Torishima, located more than 1,080 miles south of Tokyo, is Japan's southernmost island and consists of three tiny islets that barely rise above high tide.

Japan claims the water surrounding the island as part of its exclusive economic zone, which the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea defines as extending 200 nautical miles from the coast of an island, allowing resource development by the country that has sovereignty over the island. However, the convention is not applied to uninhabitable rocks.

China asserts that Okino Torishima is nothing more than a barren rock and has conducted marine surveys around the area.

In response, Japan has tried to come up with a purpose for the island. In March, a private inspection team landed on the island to survey the area for building a lighthouse.