Japan govt to appoint Eiji Chatani as vice finance minister

The Yomiuri Shimbun

15:32 JST, June 16, 2022

The government is set to install Eiji Chatani, director general of the Finance Ministry’s Budget Bureau, as administrative vice finance minister, replacing Koji Yano, it has been learned.

The appointment is expected to be endorsed at a Cabinet meeting and officially announced as early as next week.

Chatani, 58, joined the Finance Ministry in 1986 and long worked at the Budget Bureau, which handles budget formulation.

He served as the ministry’s deputy vice minister for two years from 2019 before becoming Budget Bureau head. Chatani orchestrated efforts to compile the budget for COVID-19 measures.

Yano, 59, was appointed administrative vice finance minister in July 2021.

In October, he attracted attention after saying in a magazine article that financial policy debates for the House of Representatives election and the Liberal Democratic Party presidential election were “dole-out competitions.”

Observers opined that this was unusual language for an incumbent finance minister to use.