Another elite bureaucrat at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry was expected to quit Friday to join Suzuki Motor Corp., ministry officials said.
Hirotaka Ono, chief of a division on corporate behavior at the ministry's Economic and Industrial Policy Bureau, is the latest bureaucrat to leave and take a new job.
Ono, 45, joined the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, the current ministry's predecessor, in 1979. He has served in various posts, including chief of the trade insurance office in Paris of the semi-governmental Japan External Trade Organization and chief of a division at the Small and Medium Enterprise Agency.
Ono, a native of Hamamatsu, Shizuoka Prefecture, where Suzuki has its headquarters, is married to a daughter of Suzuki Chairman Osamu Suzuki.
Ono has widely been viewed as one of the best and brightest among the ministry's bureaucrats.
"He is a man known both for his adroitness and boldness. He is an able bureaucrat and a rare individual," one ministry official said.
"I don't know whether a man like him who has been a crackerjack in dealing with Diet affairs can find success in the manufacturing industry amid the intense global competition. But I hope he will aim for president," another ministry official said.