NAGOYA (Kyodo) Chubu Electric Power Co. Managing Director Toshio Mita will replace President Fumio Kawaguchi, company sources said Wednesday.
Kawaguchi, 65, will become chairman with the right to represent the company. The appointments will be formally approved at the company's board meeting after a general meeting of shareholders in late June, the sources said.
Mita, 59, who joined the Nagoya-based utility in 1969, has played the leading role in raising the company's competitiveness since the electricity industry was recently deregulated, they said.
He served as head of three of the company's thermal power plants before assuming his current post last June.
Kawaguchi restructured management by reducing the number of executives and by other means after taking up the presidency in 2001. He will fill the chairman's post, which has been vacant for almost two years, to step up the company's presence in business circles, the sources said.
The post has been vacant since former Chairman Hiroji Ota stepped down in July 2004 after being implicated in dubious purchases of antiques.