Tokyo [Japan], September 16 (ANI): Yoshihide Suga on Wednesday took charge as the new Prime Minister of Japan and formed a cabinet of familiar faces.

Other Cabinet members including Finance Minister Taro Aso, Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi and Environment Minister Shinjiro Koizumi were retained. Of the Cabinet's 20 members, 15 had ministerial portfolios in the previous administration. There are only two women in the new cabinet, Justice Minister Yoko Kamikawa and Olympics and Paralympics Minister Seiko Hashimoto.

Japan Health Minister Katsunobu Kato was chosen to succeed Yoshihide Suga as Chief Cabinet Secretary, a key post that serves as both a policy coordinator and the government's top spokesman.

Meanwhile, Nobuo Kishi, former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's younger brother and a former senior vice foreign minister was named defence minister in his first Cabinet post, Kyodo News reported.

Kishi's predecessor in the defence post, Taro Kono, was tapped for Minister-in-charge of administrative reform, an area Suga has promised to focus on to reduce bureaucratic sectionalism.

Abe's Cabinet resigned en masse Wednesday morning, drawing an end to the premier's record-long tenure of seven years and eight months. Abe announced his resignation last month due to ulcerative colitis, a chronic disease which earlier forced him to resign from the post of the premiership in 2007. (ANI)