TOKYO - JAPAN'S cabinet resigned on Friday, members said, ahead of a reshuffle in which Premier Naoto Kan was expected to appoint several new ministers to help him push fiscal reforms and free trade policies.
Mr Kan, battling low support ratings, said earlier he would change some members of his cabinet and the leadership of his centre-left Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) ahead of a tough 150-day parliament session starting this month.
The premier was set to appoint a 72-year-old conservative former finance minister, fiscal hawk Kaoru Yosano, as his new fiscal policy minister, also putting him in charge of tax and social welfare, media reports said.
His task would be to help balance state finances in Japan, where the public debt is now twice the size of the US$5 trillion (US$6.4 trillion) economy, and where the rapid greying of the population will put more pressure on the public purse.
Mr Kan was also expected to replace his Trade Minister Akihiro Ohata, who has been reluctant to strongly push the premier's initiative to join the US-backed Trans-Pacific Partnership being debated by nine countries.
Membership in the trade pact now taking shape has been strongly backed by Japanese industrial lobbies, but opposed by politically powerful farmers' groups who fear floods of cheap imports, especially rice. -- AFP
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