Abe reshuffles Cabinet, adding minister to focus on economy

“Hence, the appointments of Marukawa and Hase, both former celebrities, were partly based on Abe’s desperate need to garner more support from a public still reeling from having 70-years of peace wrenched away from them and a largely unknown future looming that could very well see Japan directly involved in worldwide conflicts”, Muramatsu added.

“He wanted to quickly send the message that he will focus on the economy after passing the security bills”, the government source said. The idea is to promote “a society where all 100 million people are active”, Abe said.

Half of the current 18 cabinet members will retain their portfolios, including chief cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga, Finance Minister Taro Aso and Economics Minister Akira Amari, according to media reports. After years of steady decline, Japan’s population is now 126 million.

“The problem of the low birthrate and the aging population can not be neglected”, Abe told reporters after Wednesday’s Cabinet changes.

Abe promised to compile a set of measures by the end of this year under Kato’s leadership.

But with an Upper House election scheduled for summer 2016, the Abe administration apparently wants to keep steady hands at the helm of important Cabinet posts to ward off criticism from opposition parties.

He also said helping women’s advancement, or “Womenomics”, remains key to his efforts to boost the economy. “I don’t think there are many pro-fertility policies the government can introduce that will reverse the trend because of the high cost of raising a kid and the opportunity cost in terms of careers”.

Advocates of the United States-led agreement that would liberalize trade for 40 percent of the world economy say it is needed to compete with rival China’s growing economic power.

“Just increasing the number of daycare centers wouldn’t make people have more kids”, said 31-year-old Tomomi Akihama, who spends an hour delivering her two children to separate daycare centers by bicycle in the morning before work. Experts say achieving Abe’s goal would be a stretch at Japan’s recent pace of growth.

The Bank of Japan (BOJ) refrained from expanding stimulus earlier on Wednesday, even as slumping exports and falling oil prices threaten its projection that the economy is on track to hit its 2 percent inflation target next year. It was unclear how those projects could be funded, given Japan’s tight fiscal conditions.