The new-look streamlined government opened its doors for the first time on Saturday, shorn of almost half the powerful central government entities that built post-war corporate Japan.
Saturday's realignment saw the number of government ministries and agencies reduced to 13 from the previous 23. The streamlining, the first major reshuffle of the central government since 1949, was carried out in an effort to increase efficiency and flexibility in the nation's ponderous bureaucracy.
"We must make bureaucrats get rid of their sense of belonging (to their respective ministries) and make them aware that they are serving the Japanese people," Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori told Cabinet members in their first meeting under the new system.