TOKYO (JAPAN) – Chief Cabinet Secretary and prime minister hopeful Yoshihide Suga said in a newspaper interview published on Monday that the government needs to bring changes to its health ministry after the coronavirus pandemic clears.
Suga, who is considered as the top contender to succeed Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, told the Yomiuri newspaper the “the coronavirus pandemic is a huge problem that could not be handled by the health ministry alone.”
The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare is in charge of the country’s coronavirus pandemic measures.
Suga also told the Yomiuri it is important to channelise the government’s digital strategies, which are looked into separately by each respective ministry.
“As working from home has become more common in the times of the coronavirus pandemic, I think it’s evident that the government and private sector need to digitise,” he told a news briefing on Monday.
The comments strike a chord with the ideas put forth by Heizo Takenaka, a former economy minister with close ties to Suga. He has also emphasised on the importance to focus on promoting digitalisation in Japan.
Takenaka told, “I really hope Suga would push forward digitisation and environmental sustainability, which together would eventually lead to regional revitalisation.”
“It would be good to see something like a digital agency being set up, even if it’s only temporarily,” he added.