Chainsaw Al, Mr Yen, so much for full employment.....
Japan's 'Mr Yen' may be out in expected reshuffle
TOKYO, June 15 (Reuters) - As Japan's scandal-ridden Ministry of Finance prepares for its annual
personnel reshuffle this week, subtle signs are pointing to the possible exit of ''Mr Yen,'' Eisuke
Sakakibara.
The Ministry of Finance (MOF) has said that top financial diplomats would be told later this week
whether they would keep or change their posts, or retire, but that formal announcements would not be
made until around late June to mid-July.
In a sign that a personnel reshuffle was imminent, Japanese newspapers reported on Sunday that MOF
bureaucrat Hideichiro Hamanaka had been tapped to take the post of vice minister for the new agency
in charge of supervising financial firms.
But the newspapers were silent on the subject of what would happen to Sakakibara, who has been a
vice finance minister for international affairs since June 1997.
The outspoken Sakakibara won plaudits and the sobriquet ''Mr Yen'' for helping engineer the reversal
of the yen's record rise from its 1995 peak of nearly 79 to the dollar, when he was a director-general at
MOF's International Finance Bureau.
But his influence over the foreign exchange market seems to be waning fast, as the often-repeated line
by Sakakibara and other MOF officials that Japan will ''act decisively'' against excessive yen
weakness has lately fallen on deaf ears.
The dollar rose to 146 yen in late Tokyo trading on Monday, the highest since August 1990, as
investors sold the yen and other Asian currencies over economic worries in the region.
The trend became pronounced after about $20 billion worth of yen-buying intervention in April, which
lifted the yen temporarily but failed to firmly establish its reversal.
Sakakibara is known as a colourful character who often speaks out in the press when others from his
ministry keep low profiles. He also has enemies in parliament who have accused him of various
breaches of conduct.
His detractors accuse him of denigrating parliament by criticising the restrictions it puts on ministers'
international travel, and of overstepping his bounds by calling for changes in the constitution.
One opposition member of parliament, Shozo Kusakawa, has accused Sakakibara of persuading a
brokerage to compensate a friend for investment losses in 1991. Sakakibara has denied wrongdoing
and a previous investigation cleared him. But he was one of 112 MOF officials punished in April for
accepting excessive wining and dining from financial institutions.
A recent article in the weekly magazine FRIDAY said there were members of parliament who said
Sakakibara's decision to intervene in the currency market in April, which did not have lasting impact,
went against Japan's interests.
Sakakibara's predecessor, Takatoshi Kato, who is now an adviser to Japan's finance minister, is set to
leave the ministry to become a visiting professor at Princeton University, leaving a position open for
Mr Yen.
Vice finance ministers for international affairs usually become advisers to the finance minister before
leaving the ministry for other occupations in the private sector.
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