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Japan has nominated a senior finance ministry official for the top job at the Asian Development Bank, as Tokyo looks to keep hold of a role it has held for almost 50 years.
Tokyo said it had named Takehiko Nakao, Vice Finance Minister for International Affairs, as its pick to head the Manila-based ADB with its current chief expected to take over as head of the Bank of Japan.
ADB head Haruhiko Kuroda was nominated last week as the Governor of Japan’s central bank, and the Oxford University graduate said that he would step down from the ADB later this month.
Finance Minister Taro Aso on Thursday described Nakao, 57, as the “most qualified candidate for fulfilling the important responsibilities of the ADB President’’, citing his “broad and in-depth knowledge of the Asian region’’.
The foreign-exchange policy bureaucrat has “fostered close relationships with leading figures” across Asia, the Group of 20 leading economies and organisations including the International Monetary Fund, Aso said.
Since its founding in 1966, every ADB president has been Japanese with the position seen in a similar light to the historical hiring of an American for the World Bank’s top job and a European at the International Monetary Fund.
However emerging nations have become increasingly vocal critics over US and European control of such institutions even as their own economic power and global influence soars.
Japan and the US are the ADB’s two largest contributors and hold about one-quarter of its voting power, but the hiring of Nakao is not a shoo-in with regional giants China and India also holding some sway over the process.
It was unclear if other member countries would nominate a contender to challenge Nakao, but Tokyo’s finance chief said Japan was lobbying for Nakao’s hiring with the ADB’s 66 other member nations and regions.
“It is a shared understanding of the international community that heads of international institutions should be elected on an open, transparent and merit basis,” Aso said in a statement.
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