Abe appoints demographics minister to slow Japan’s population slide

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has appointed a minister charged with spearheading his effort to halt the slide in Japan’s population, which the premier has made the centerpiece of his new plan to revive the world’s third-largest economy.

Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato, a former finance ministry bureaucrat, is charged with implementing policies to boost the birthrate and expand spending on elderly and child care. In a cabinet reshuffle announced Wednesday, Abe kept his core team, retaining Economy Minister Akira Amari, Finance Minister Taro Aso, and Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga in their posts.

Japan is threatened with both labour shortages and an explosion in welfare costs as one of the world’s lowest birth rates and grayest populations is set to slash the workforce by almost half by 2060. Abe’s new plan seeks to prevent the 127- million population from sliding below 100 million within half a century by encouraging people to have more children, and implementing measures to ease the burden on workers having to care for elderly relatives.

"This is not a simple problem with a preset blueprint," Abe said Tuesday. The new minister must "destroy barriers between ministries and agencies; must have the imagination to put together bold policies and the ability to break through difficulties to put them into practice," he said.

Abe was last month reappointed unopposed as leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, putting him on track to become the longest-serving prime minister in four decades. Still, he is seeking to fine-tune his team to bolster voter support ahead of an upper house election next summer Widespread public opposition to his policies to expand the role of the military has sapped popular backing for his government.