Tokyo - A new Japanese cabinet was sworn in yesterday after the Prime Minister, Mr Ryutaro Hashimoto, shuffled his team, naming a political heavyweight as foreign minister and granting a comeback to a scandal-tainted veteran.
The new cabinet held its first meeting at the Prime Minister's office in Tokyo hours after it was sworn in by Emperor Akihito at the Imperial Palace.
During the 30-minute meeting with his new and reappointed ministers, Mr Hashimoto renewed his determination to push ahead with fiscal and financial reforms, government officials said.
Mr Hashimoto named Mr Keizo Obuchi, leader of the biggest faction in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), as Foreign Minister and retained the Finance Minister, Mr Hiroshi Mitsuzuka. Mr Obuchi (60), who replaced Mr Yukihiko Ikeda, is widely seen as a possible future prime minister.
The outgoing cabinet resigned at an extraordinary meeting hours after the LDP formally re-elected Mr Hashimoto as leader, paving the way for his second shuffle since taking over as prime minister in January last year.
Mr Mitsuzuka and Mr Obuchi will play key roles in international conferences this year, including the Group of Seven (G7) finance ministers' meetings in Hong Kong this month and the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) forum in Vancouver in November.
"In this reshuffle, I stressed the continuation of our major policy," Mr Hashimoto said before the cabinet meeting. "We are responsible for pushing reforms in order to change the country."
Mr Hashimoto appointed Mr Koko Sato (69) as directorgeneral of the management and co-ordination agency. He was convicted of bribery in a 1970s Lockheed scandal. Mr Sato was found guilty of taking two million yen in bribes from All Nippon Airways in 1972, when he was transport minister, in one of the largest bribery scandals in Japan.