To the belated, if only partial, relief of Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and financial market players, the position of the governor of the Bank of Japan, which had been empty since former BOJ chief Toshihiko Fukui's tenure ended on March 19, has finally been filled.
The Diet has approved the government plan to promote BOJ deputy governor Masaaki Shirakawa to the top position. But one of the BOJ's two deputy governors positions remains vacant because the Democratic Party of Japan and two other opposition parties opposed the government's nomination of Mr. Hiroshi Watanabe, former vice finance minister for international affairs.
The Diet's approval of Mr. Shirakawa as new governor has allowed both Mr. Fukuda and Japan to save face. It enabled Mr. Shirakawa to attend the meeting in Washington of central bankers and finance ministers from the G7 industrialized nations on Friday as head of the BOJ. If Japan had not appointed the new BOJ governor in time, other industrialized nations might have lost their trust in Japan as a partner in the field of monetary policy.