TOKYO (MNI) – The Japanese government on Friday formally appointed
a university professor to the Bank of Japan policy board, effective
immediately, to fill one of the two vacancies on the nine-member panel,
the BOJ announced.

Ryuzo Miyao, a 45-year-old economic professor specializing in
macro-economic policy at Kobe University in western Japan, is succeeding
Atsushi Mizuno, a former private-sector economist whose five-year term
as a BOJ board member expired on Dec. 2 last year.

Miyao will hold a news conference at the BOJ at 1640 JST (0740 GMT)
today, the BOJ said.

Parliament has approved his nomination.

The BOJ board still has one vacancy left due the promotion in March
2008 of Kiyohiko Nishimura to one of the two deputy governor positions
at the central bank.

Earlier this month, the government proposed in parliament that
Yoshihisa Morimoto, a former vice president at Tokyo Electric Power Co.,
be appointed to the BOJ’s policy board.

Given the ruling coalition’s control of the legislature, the
proposal is likely to be approved during the current 150-day ordinary
session that ends June 16.

Morimoto, 65, is expected to step down from his current position as
director at the utility at the end of June and assume the new post at
the central bank on July 1, newspaper reports have said.

The Democratic Party of Japan, which now leads the government, has
been opposed to former MOF officials taking up jobs at the BOJ policy
board, with the party demanding the separation of fiscal and monetary
policies. It has also been adamant that the appointment of a former
senior Finance Ministry official would undermine the BOJ’s independence.

When Toshihiko Fukui retired at the end of his five-year term as
BOJ governor in March 2008, his deputy Toshiro Muto, the top candidate
to succeed him, didn’t get the job because he was formerly a vice
finance minister, even though he had served at the bank for five years.

Career central banker Masaaki Shirakawa was hurriedly called back
from academia and was made one of the two BOJ deputy governors. The new
BOJ leadership had to start without an appointed head until Shirakawa
was quickly promoted to the top position in April 2008.

Six months later Hirohide Yamaguchi was promoted to deputy governor
from executive director to fill one of the two vacancies.

tokyo@marketnews.com
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