Former BOJ official to work for UAE central bank

A former senior Bank of Japan official is to work for the central bank of the United Arab Emirates, underscoring increasingly close bilateral relationships. Masaru Tanaka, who held key positions at the BOJ such as in the currency division overseeing interventions around 2000 and in the banking inspection department during Japan's financial system crisis, resigned from the Japanese central bank on January 31.

Tanaka said he will be a "senior reviewer" at the UAE central bank and his work will likely be related to banking inspections, possibly intended to draw on Japan's expertise in dealing with non-performing loans. It will be the first time a former BOJ employee has worked for the UAE central bank, Tanaka said. The UAE is the second-biggest oil supplier to Japan after Saudi Arabia, accounting for 20.4 per cent of Tokyo's oil imports in 2010, after Saudi Arabia's 28.8 percent. Japan has been stepping up ties with the UAE to help Japanese companies' oil production there.