The presentation was given at a meeting of the Tokyo Science and Technology Diplomat's Circle at the Canadian Embassy. Portions of the report are drawn from summary notes prepared by Phillip Hicks, Science Attache at the Canadian Embassy, whose permission to use them in this way is gratefully acknowledged. STA's Atomic Energy Bureau and Nuclear Safety Bureau are to be integrated into a new unit within the reorganized MITI called the Agency of Natural Resources and Energy. The Japanese name will be Keizai Sangyo-sho, or, directly translated, Ministry of Economy and Industry. Currently, MITI consists of seven bureaus and three agencies.
Bureaus differ from agencies with respect to their mandate and their degree of autonomy.
Directors of agencies need only to report to the Minister on politically important points. As a consequence, AIST is permitted to decide all but the most sensitive policy issues according to its own wishes, relatively independent from governmental control exercised through the MITI Minister. Currently, AIST employs close to 3,000 individuals. Until now, there has been no little or no connection, at MITI, between science and technology policy formulation and economic policy. In particular, an Industrial Science and Technology Policy Division will be created, one of whose units will be an International Affairs Office.