The foreign, finance and health and welfare ministries all reacted cautiously May 14 to proposed organizational changes necessary to realize Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto's pledge of slimming down the government.
During the second round of hearings on ministries and agencies by Hashimoto's blue-ribbon panel on administrative reform, officials at the Finance Ministry maintained that it should remain responsible for both fiscal and monetary policies despite a call by some lawmakers to have two separate bodies for the two policies, according to officials of the panel's secretariat.
The ministry officials pointed out that there is no country in the Group of Seven industrialized nations that has a minister responsible for fiscal policy and another responsible for monetary policy. They said one minister should be given a mandate to oversee both policies because otherwise he or she would be unable to discuss important issues at G-7 meetings of finance ministers and central bank governors.