TOKYO, September 16. /TASS/. The composition of Japan’s cabinet led by new Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga was announced by new Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato on Wednesday.

Among the ministers of Shinzo Abe’s cabinet, who will retain their jobs, are Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi, Finance Minister Taro Aso, Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Kazuyoshi Akaba, as well as Minister of State for the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games Seiko Hashimoto and Minister of State for Economic and Fiscal Policy Yasutoshi Nishimura.

Japanese Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Hiroshi Kajiyama, who is in charge of economic cooperation with Russia, and Minister of the Environment Shinjiro Koizumi also retained their posts.

Meanwhile, Defense Minister Taro Kono stepped down and was appointed as the Minister in charge of Administrative Reform. He was replaced by Nobuo Kishi, Shinzo Abe’s younger brother, who earlier served as deputy foreign minister. Suga’s government also introduced a new post of a digital minister. Takuya Hirai, a former minister for information technology policy under Abe, will fulfill these duties.

The new Chairman of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party of Japan Yoshihide Suga, who formerly served as the Chief Cabinet Secretary, was approved as the new prime minister on Wednesday. The majority of lawmakers from both houses of parliament backed him. According to the party’s charter, he will stay in office until late September 2021, when Shinzo Abe’s mandate officially expires. Then a new election will take place for the standard three-year term.

On August 28, Abe announced that he wanted to step down due to health reasons. He suffered from ulcerative colitis and had also resigned due to health issues in 2007. Abe became Japan's longest-serving leader in terms of consecutive days in office. All in all, as of August 24 he had spent 2,799 days on his post since the beginning of his second tenure in December 2012.