Japan’s Economy Minister Akira Amari has said he is resigning amid corruption allegations.<\/p>\n
Mr Amari unexpectedly made the announcement at a press conference in Tokyo on Thursday.<\/p>\n
But he again denied personally receiving bribes from a construction company, as had been alleged by a Japanese magazine.<\/p>\n
The development will be seen as a significant blow for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.<\/p>\n
Mr Amari, who has been minister of state for economic and fiscal policy since late 2012, has been widely described as one of Mr Abe’s most trusted members of parliament.<\/p>\n
As Japan’s lead negotiator for the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, Mr Amari was expected to travel to New Zealand next week to sign the agreement.<\/p>\n
He was also regarded as the architect of Abenomics – Mr Abe’s plan to pull the world’s third largest economy out of deflation.<\/p>\n
“This is possibly the biggest scandal the Abe administration has faced,” said the BBC’s Mariko Oi.<\/p>\n
“His resignation will probably raise even more questions over Mr Abe’s economic policies – or Abenomics,” our correspondent added.<\/p>\n
“It may also raise further opposition within Japan to the TPP.”<\/p>\n
Mr Amari will be replaced by Nobuteru Ishihara, formerly the country’s environment minister.<\/p>\n
‘I’m no exception’<\/strong><\/p>\n A local magazine had reported last week that Mr Amari and his aides were given money and gifts worth some 12m yen ($101,000; \u00a370,500) by a construction company in return for some favours linked to land ownership.<\/p>\n Mr Amari said he did receive money which he wanted declared as a political donation, however, he said some of it was mishandled by his staff.<\/p>\n Japan’s economy, which has been struggling with deflation for nearly two decades,avoided a technical recession in the three months to September last year.<\/p>\n “Japan is finally emerging from deflation,” Mr Amari told the press conference, as reported by Reuters.<\/p>\n “We need to pass legislation through parliament for steps to beat deflation and create a strong economy as soon as possible.<\/p>\n “Anything that hampers this must be eliminated, and I’m no exception,” Reuters reported him as saying.<\/p>\n “I, therefore, would like to resign as minister to take responsibility [for what my aide has done],” he said, according to Reuters.<\/p>\n Mr Amari is the fourth member of Mr Abe’s cabinet to resign amid allegations of bribery, among other issues.<\/p>\n Mr Abe has apologised for the latest resignation. Japan’s Economy Minister Akira Amari has said he is resigning amid corruption allegations. Mr Amari unexpectedly made the announcement at a press conference in Tokyo on Thursday. But he again denied personally receiving bribes from a construction company, as had been alleged by a Japanese magazine. The development will be seen as a significant blow […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[107,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-185249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=185249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185249\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=185249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=185249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=185249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n–
\nBy: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"