National printing company

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Main building of the National Printing House of Japan

The National Printing Bureau or State Printing Office ( Japanese 独立 行政 法人 国立 印刷 局 , Dokuritsu Gyōsei Hōjin Kokuritsu Insatsukyoku , English National Printing Bureau ) is a self-governing body of the Japanese Ministry of Finance that, similar to the German Federal Printing Office , prints banknotes, passports, postal savings accounts, securities, etc. . The headquarters is located in the district of Minato in Tokyo , seven printers are in different Tokyo districts and prefectures (in Toranomon, Takinogawa, Ōji, Odawara , Shizuoka , Hikone and Okayama ). The employees of the National Printing House are state officials ( 国家 公務員 , kokuritsu kōmuin ) within the meaning of the Japanese Civil Service Act ( 国家 公務員 法 , kokuritsu kōmuinhō ). The State Printing House currently employs 4,216 people (as of April 2015) under the management of Hiroyuki Ujikane.

overview

The State Printing Office was set up on July 27, 1871 as the “Office for Paper Money” ( 紙幣 司 , shiheishi ) of the Ministry of Finance and was renamed “Office for Paper Money” ( 紙幣 寮 , shiheiryō ) in August . The aim was to meet the increasing demand for paper money, which had been printed in Germany and America until then, through a state-owned production facility. In 1872 the government enacted the "National Bank Law" ( 国立 銀行 条例 , kokuritsu ginkō jōrei ), which was supposed to regulate money transactions after the Meiji Restoration . In the same year, a “copying authority” ( 印 書局 , inshokyoku ) was set up, which three years later, in 1875, was merged with the “bureau for paper money” and placed under the Ministry of Finance. After the first print shop was built in Ōtemachi in the following year, the “office for paper money” was renamed again in 1877 to “(state) print shop” ( 印刷 局 , insatsukyoku , literally: “printing authority”).

In 1877 the company's first banknote, a one-yen note, was produced. The printer Motogi Shōzō and the Italian etcher Edoardo Chiossone , who, as a foreign contractor ( oyatoi gaikokujin ), designed a portrait of the Meiji emperor for the banknotes, played a key role in the production of the first banknotes .

On the basis of the “National Bank Act” enacted in 1872, 153 state banks were created within a short period of time, whose paper money requirements could now be met by the state's own printing house. In 1882 the Bank of Japan was set up as the central bank of Japan, which took over the right to issue banknotes. In 1943, the "Cabinet Printing Office" ( 内閣 印 na , naikaku insatsukyoku ), which until then was subordinate to the Japanese Cabinet , was incorporated into the State Printing House , so that the printing house has since been responsible for the production of the official gazettes . In 2003 the state printing office was converted into a self-governing body.

As early as 1936, the "Hospital of the Tokyo State Printing Office" ( 国立 印刷 局 東京 病院 , Kokuritsu insatsukyoku Tōkyō byōin ) was set up specifically for the medical care of state officials who are employed in the state printing plant, and it still exists today.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 国立 印刷 局 . In: 日本 大 百科全書 (ニ ッ ポ ニ カ) at kotobank.jp. Retrieved April 10, 2015 (Japanese).
  2. ↑ a b c Bureau Overview. National Printing Bureau, accessed April 10, 2015 .

Web links

Coordinates: 35 ° 40 ′ 7.6 "  N , 139 ° 44 ′ 42.2"  E