Japan’s newly elected prime minister Yoshihide Suga may seek to form an independent board to oversee the Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF). However, experts said that it may not happen at least until his re-election in October next year.

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The debate about whether the GPIF should have an independent board instead of coming under the oversight of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) started several years ago, with many believing that the pension fund requires senior investment professional expertise and should be independent of political intervention, Shigeto Nagai, head of Japanese economics at Oxford Economics, Economics, told AsianInvestor.

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The MHLW is responsible for all unsolved and pressing structural problems like social insurance reforms, healthcare systems, and labour market reforms. There are too many agendas for this ministry, and Suga may move to reorganise the MHLW once he establishes a stable administration, Nagai said.

“So in that [reorganisation] process [the question of] who will oversee GPIF could be one of the issues to be discussed,” Nagai said.

Suga succeeded Shinzo Abe, who became Japan’s longest-serving prime minister since assuming the premiership in 2012, following the latter’s resignation for health reasons on August 28. Suga will serve the remainder of Abe’s term, which ends in October next year.

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