Photo/Illutration Kazuo Ueda in 2020 (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

Japan will appoint Kazuo Ueda, a 71-year-old economist, as the next Bank of Japan governor, replacing long-time chief Haruhiko Kuroda.

Kuroda, 78, will step down from the post on April 8.

Ueda is a professor at Kyoritsu Women’s University who specializes in macroeconomics and financial theory. He was also member of the BOJ’s Policy Board for seven years from 1998.

The central government is expected to submit the personnel proposal to the Diet on Feb. 14.

The proposal will also nominate Ryozo Himino, 62, and Shinichi Uchida, 60, for the two vice governor positions at the central bank.

Himino is a former commissioner of the Financial Services Agency and now serves as an executive fellow at NLI Research Institute.

Uchida is currently a BOJ board member.

After approval of both the Lower House and Upper House, the central government will formally appoint the three. They are expected to serve five years in their posts.

Ueda graduated from the University of Tokyo’s School of Science in 1974 and became a professor of the Faculty of Economics at the university in 1993.

As a BOJ Policy Board member, Ueda helped to formulate and implement the bank’s zero-interest-rate policy and quantitative easing policy.

He resigned from the board in 2005.

Since then, he has served as chief of the University of Tokyo’s Faculty of Economics as well as head of the Kyoritsu Women’s University’s Department of Business Studies.

In 2010 he assumed the lead position of the investment committee at the Government Pension Investment Fund.

In 2011, Ueda became chair of the Japanese Economic Association.

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