Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday appointed senior bureaucrat Makiko Yamada as his official secretary, the first time in history a woman as ever held the post.

Abe tapped Yamada, a 53-year-old former vice minister at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, as part of his pet policy initiative of promoting the status of women in male-dominated Japan.

"Promoting women's status is one of the major pillars in promoting our strategies for economic growth," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a news conference. "We'd like to tap more women for the Cabinet as a whole."