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Wednesday October 15, 5:12 PM
Bank of Japan veteran nominated as deputy chiefJapan's government Wednesday nominated veteran central banker Hirohide Yamaguchi as a deputy governor of the Bank of Japan in a bid to end a long political stalemate over the vacant post. Yamaguchi, 57, joined the Bank of Japan in 1974 and is now an executive director. The opposition, which voted down the previous candidate because he was a former bureaucrat, signalled it was likely to approve the choice.
"Given the current financial crisis, it's all the more important to fill the deputy governor's post at a time when other countries are looking at Japan's past experiences," he said. Yamaguchi is expected to appear before parliamentary committees later this week to share his views, ahead of a vote by lawmakers, possibly on Tuesday next week. His appointment must be approved by both the lower and upper houses. A senior official of the largest opposition Democratic Party of Japan, Kenji Yamaoka, hinted his party was likely to support the nomination. "There may be no objections within our party as he is not someone from the finance ministry," Yamaoka was quoted by Jiji Press as saying. One of the two deputy governor posts has been vacant since March. The opposition has voted down several candidates for top jobs at the BoJ, saying they were too close to the government to ensure its independence. In April, the opposition approved then deputy governor Masaaki Shirakawa as the new central bank chief, bringing an end to an embarrassing two-week vacancy in the top post during a global credit crunch. While the BoJ has independence in setting monetary policy, it has come under pressure in the past from the government to keep interest rates low and give the economy more time to recover from recessions in the 1990s. Taizo Nishimuro, chairman of the Tokyo Stock Exchange and an adviser to the finance ministry, called for the swift approval of Yamaguchi. "There is some uneasiness about a system of one governor and one deputy governor when we have to deal with the current global confusion," Nishimuro said, according to Jiji. "We would like (parliament) to appoint him soon."
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