Katsunobu Katō (加藤勝信, ''Katō Katsunobu''; born 22 November 1955) is a Japanese politician. He was served as the Minister of Finance under Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba since October 2024. Previously, he was served as the three-time Minister of Health, Labour, and Welfare under Shinzo Abe from 2017 to 2018 and from 2019 to 2020, and under Fumio Kishida from 2022 to 2023, and as the Chief Cabinet Secretary under Yoshihide Suga from 2020 to 2021. Belonging to the Liberal Democratic Party, he has been a member of the

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entities. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often ...

since 2003. Born and raised in

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

and a graduate of the University of Tokyo, Kato had a bureaucratic career in the Ministry of Finance before going into politics.

Early life, family, and career

Kato was born as Katsunobu Murosaki (室崎勝信) on 22 November 1955 in Tokyo, Japan. His father, Katsutoshi Murosaki, was an executive at

Hino Motors Hino Motors, Ltd., commonly known as Hino, is a Japanese manufacturer of commercial vehicles and diesel engines (including those for trucks, buses and other vehicles) headquartered in Hino, Tokyo. The company was established in 1942 as a corpora ...

. The family came from

Shimane Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Chūgoku region of Honshu. Shimane Prefecture is the List of Japanese prefectures by population, second-least populous prefecture of Japan at 665,205 (February 1, 2021) and has a ge ...

, where his grandfather, Katsuzo Murosaki was a businessman and prefectural assemblyman. Kato studied economics at the University of Tokyo and joined the Ministry of Finance upon graduating in 1979. He held several positions, such as chief of the Kurayoshi Tax Office, secretary to Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Hideo Watanabe and chief inspector for the labour and defense budgets. In April 1994, Kato was assigned as secretary to the Minister of Agriculture Mutsuki Kato. Kato married Shuko Kato, the daughter of Mutsuki Kato. As his family had only daughters, Kato was adopted by his father-in-law to carry on his family name. He retired from the Ministry of Finance in 1995 and became his father-in-law's personal secretary.

Political career

Fumio Kishida Katsunobu Kato and Hiroshige Seko cropped John Kerry Shinzo Abe Fumio Kishida Katsunobu Kato and Hiroshige Seko 20130415

Kato would pursue his political career in

Okayama Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Chūgoku region of Honshu. Okayama Prefecture has a population of 1,826,059 (1 February 2025) and has a geographic area of 7,114 Square kilometre, km2 (2,746 sq mi). Okayama Prefecture ...

, where his adoptive family was based. After unsuccessful runs in

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for Lunar water, frozen water, in soil i ...

and

2000 2000 was designated as the International Year for the Culture of Peace and the World Mathematics, Mathematical Year. Popular culture holds the year 2000 as the first year of the 21st century and the 3rd millennium, because of a tende ...

, Kato was elected to the House of Representatives for the first time in the 2003 general election. He had initially run as an independent as his father-in-law had left the LDP, however fellow Okayama politician and former Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto recruited him for the party and when elected, Kato joined the Heisei Kenkyukai led by Hashimoto. This was significant as Hashimoto and Mutsuki Kato had long been rivals in the political world of Okayama. Kato became a confidant of Shinzo Abe. This was partially due to a family relationship, as Mutsuki Kato had been a close ally of Abe's father Shintaro Abe and his wife had remained a close friend of Abe's mother, Yoko. In August 2007, Kato became parliamentary vice minister to the Cabinet Office in the Abe Cabinet. He was retained until the end of the Yasuo Fukuda Cabinet. When Abe was re-elected as president of the LDP in September 2012, he appointed Kato as his special assistant. In December of the same year, the LDP returned to government and Kato was appointed Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary. In October 2015, Kato joined the cabinet for the first time as minister of state with a portfolio including countermeasures against the declining birthrate and women's empowerment. When Shinzo Abe reshuffled his cabinet in August 2017 , Kato became as the Minister of Health, Labor, and Welfare, but he left cabinet in October 2018 when he was appointed Chairman of the General Council, one of four key posts in the LDP. Kato was reappointed as Minister of Health, Labor, and Welfare in September 2019. After Abe resigned as Prime Minister on 16 September 2020 for health reasons, Kato was appointed Chief Cabinet Secretary under his successor Yoshihide Suga. After the end of the Suga Cabinet after one year, Kato became chairman of the Social Security Research Commission and subcommittee chairman of the Tax Research Commission within the LDP. In August 2022 when Prime Minister Fumio Kishida reshuffled his cabinet following the

assassination Assassination is the willful killing, by a sudden, secret, or planned attack, of a personespecially if prominent or important. It may be prompted by political, ideological, religious, financial, or military motives. Assassinations are orde ...

of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe one month previous, Kato was appointed Minister of Health, Labor, and Welfare for the third time. On 27 April 2023 as COVID-19 Omicron infections continued to declined, Kato announced that Japanese government would be downgrade the classification of COVID-19 to be on par with a "seasonal flu" by midnight 8 May after the three days delayed during the 8-day holiday period of Golden Week Festival. Kato left from the cabinet due to the reshuffle in September 2023, after which he once again became chairman of the Social Security Research Commission, and as well as Secretary-General of the LDP Headquarters for Realizing Constitutional Revision. In September 2024, Kato was named to join the cabinet of Shigeru Ishiba as Minister of Finance.

Honours

* : Grand Officer of the Order of Orange-Nassau (29 October 2014)Decoraties Staatsbezoeken Japan en Republiek Korea
- website of the Dutch Royal House

Election history

References

External links