At a Cabinet meeting Friday, the government appointed Jiro Kobayashi, former ambassador to Fiji, as ambassador to Bangladesh.
Kunio Shimizu, consul general in Strasbourg, France, was also named ambassador to Nicaragua.
Both appointments will take effect Monday.
Kobayashi, 61, entered the Foreign Ministry in 1963. After serving as consul general in Shanghai and ambassador to Fiji, he joined the board of directors at Omron Corp. in November 1999 and remained on the board until last month.
Shimizu, 53, entered the ministry in 1971. He assumed his current post in July 1997, after stints as minister at the embassy in Algiers and head of a Tokyo-based foundation set up to assist Asian refugees in Japan.