Ex-Aide to Abe to Step Down as Vice Trade Minister

July 25, 2018

Tokyo- Tadao Yanase, former executive secretary to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, will step down as vice minister for international affairs at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry on Wednesday, the ministry said Tuesday.

In May, Yanase, 57, gave parliamentary testimony as an unsworn witness over a cronyism scandal involving Kake Educational Institution, headed by a friend of Abe.

Yanase's testimony followed allegations that he met in 2015 with officials of the Ehime prefectural government and Kake Educational Institution over the private school operator's application to open a university faculty of veterinary medicine in a national strategic special deregulation zone in Imabari in the western Japan prefecture.

The government approved the application in 2017 and the faculty opened in April this year.

The post of vice minister for international affairs is the second highest for bureaucrats at the ministry. Yanase assumed the post in July last year.

Tatsuya Terazawa, the 57-year-old director-general of the ministry's Commerce and Information Policy Bureau, will succeed Yanase.

Separately, the ministry announced that Taizo Takahashi, 55-year-old deputy vice minister of economy, trade and industry, will succeed Satoshi Kusakabe, 58, as commissioner of the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy.

The appointments will also take effect on Wednesday.

Takashi Shimada, 58, will remain as vice minister of economy, trade and industry at the ministry.

"The issue involving Kake Educational Institution had no impact on the latest appointments," Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Hiroshige Seko told a news conference on Tuesday.

The Japanese government will soon launch a new "free, fair and reciprocal" trade dialogue, dubbed FFR talks, with the United States.

Terazawa is expected to play a key part in the negotiations, in which the United States is highly likely to call for a reduction of its automotive trade deficit with Japan. The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump is strengthening its protectionist stance, considering import restrictions in the automotive sector.

Terazawa assumed the current post in July last year after entering the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, now the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, in 1984.

After joining the former ministry in 1985, Takahashi took his current position in June 2016. Jiji Press