Councillor Yutaka Kobayashi (Liberal Democratic Party, Kanagawa) is a first-term member of the House of Councillors elected in July 2001. Currently he serves as the LDP’s Deputy Secretary-General in the House of Councillors. Within that chamber he is assigned to three committee memberships including: Economy and Industry (Director), Special Committee on North Korean Abduction Issue and Related Matters (Director) and the Research Committee on International Affairs.

In addition to his parliamentary duties, his memberships and responsibilities within the Liberal Democratic Party include: Committee on Organizations Involved with IT Industries (Vice-Chairman), Special Committee on e-Japan Policy and Subcommittee on an Information-Oriented Society (Secretary-General). He is a member of the Mori Faction and a charter member of the non-factional “Committee to Create the Next Generation’s Prime Minister” established in September 2003.

Councillor Kobayashi works on issues related to the following four general policy areas: 1) advancement and implementation of IT & e-Government; 2) development of venture policy with specific emphasis on protecting and preserving the role of small- and medium-sized enterprises within Japan’s economy; 3) strengthening Japan’s defense and security policy; and 4) developing mutual partnerships with both Korea and the United States.

Councillor Kobayashi was among a group of six LDP members who drafted two separate pieces of legislation providing tougher measures on North Korea. The first, the Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Law, enacted in February 2004, enables the government to unilaterally halt cash remittances to North Korea. While the second, passed in June 2004, may potentially be used to ban North Korean ships from entering Japanese ports.

Yutaka Kobayashi received his bachelor’s in political science from Waseda University in 1989. From 1989-91, he participated in an intensive two-year program at the Matsushita Institute of Government and Management. Upon completion of the Matsushita program, he spent two years in Washington, DC, first as a consultant at Shearman & Sterling and then as a visiting scholar in International Affairs at Johns Hopkins University’s School for Advanced International Studies (SAIS).

Prior to his successful candidacy for public office, Yutaka Kobayashi established himself as a businessman, first as the manager of his family’s office supply business and then as a financial and Internet entrepreneur. His initial step into national politics came in 2000 when he served as Special Advisor for Foreign Affairs under then Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori.

In the fall of 2000, he became the first publicly recruited candidate to stand in a national election for the Liberal Democratic Party. An admitted beneficiary of the “Koizumi Boom” in 2001, he garnered over 1.4 million votes as a non-faction based candidate for Kanagawa Prefecture.

Councilor Kobyashi strongly believes that the more LDP seats there are in the Parliament, the better it is for the future of both Japan and Kanagawa Prefecture. He actively travels across the country to support his fellow LDP candidates in their election campaigns. His energetic support in these campaigns, often representing the younger generations of the party, gave him the popular nickname of ‘Mr MC’ among the LDP members.