Noriko Horiuchi, taking her first Cabinet post as minister in charge of coronavirus vaccinations and Olympic-related issues, is a three-term lower house member who served as a senior vice minister of environment.

Horiuchi, 55, is the daughter-in-law of the late Mitsuo Horiuchi, a former international trade and industry minister who previously led a Liberal Democratic Party faction currently headed by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

First elected as a House of Representatives member in 2012 in Yamanashi Prefecture, she was an avid tennis player in her junior high and high school days. Her husband Koichiro is the president of rail operator Fuji Kyuko Co.

==Kyodo

© Kyodo News International, Inc., source Newswire