MNI: UPDATE: Japan Diet Approves BOJ Kuroda 2nd Term, Deputies

--Recasts With Lower House Vote

     TOKYO (MNI) - Japanese parliament approved on Friday in a majority vote the

government nomination of Haruhiko Kuroda for a second five-year term as Bank of

Japan governor.

     The Diet also approved the government nominees for the two deputy governors

-- Masayoshi Amamiya, executive director in charge of monetary policy at the

BOJ, and Masazumi Wakatabe, an economics professor at Waseda University.

     Following approval by the Upper House earlier on Friday, a majority 'yes'

vote at the Lower House finalized the parliamentary process of endorsing the

incoming top BOJ policymakers.

     Given the ruling coalition's majority in both houses, the BOJ appointments

were expected to win Diet approval easily.

     However, new revelations about the year-long political scandal, which

indicated ruling party politicians might have tried to influence a questionable

state land sale, promoted opposition boycott, raising fears that plenary-session

approval at each house might be delayed and cause temporary vacancies on the BOJ

board.

     Kuroda's current five-year term ends on April 8 while Amamiya and Wakatabe

will replace Hiroshi Nakaso and Kikuo Iwata, whose five-year terms end on

Monday.

     The new deputy governors are expected to hold a joint news conference late

on Tuesday.

     At a news conference last week after the latest BOJ policy meeting, Kuroda

repeated his recent remarks that the central bank is "not at a stage to consider

the specifics of an exit" from large-scale monetary easing because "there is

still some distance" toward the bank's 2% inflation target.

     Amamiya, 62, is a career central banker. He has been responsible for

drafting many of the bank's monetary policy measures, including the policies on

quantitative and quality easing and negative interest rates.

     Amamiya told a parliamentary committee last week that BOJ officials "are

discussing what exit options the BOJ has and how they should be used" in

preparation for the eventual unwinding of large-scale monetary easing.

     Wakatabe, 52, is a reflationist who has advocated bold monetary easing to

overcome deflation. He told lawmakers last week that he would like to assess

whether the current easy policy is enough to achieve the 2% price target and

that he would propose to conduct additional easing if necessary.

     Both Amamiya and Wakatabe said the benefits of aggressive easing are bigger

than its costs.

--MNI Tokyo Bureau; tel: +81 90-2175-0040; email: hiroshi.inoue@marketnews.com

--MNI Tokyo Bureau; tel: +81 90-4670-5309; email: max.sato@marketnews.com

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