Hideto Fujii, the head of the Finance Ministry's Budget Bureau, has been tapped to succeed Koichi Hosokawa as vice minister, sources said Wednesday. Finance Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki is expected start the personnel reshuffle as early as late July, the sources said. If the selection proceeds as planned, the 58-year-old Fujii -- a graduate of Kyoto University -- would become the first vice finance minister not to hail from the University of Tokyo in 58 years. The last vice minister who was not a University of Tokyo graduate was Hayato Ikeda, who served between February 1947 to March 1948. Ikeda, whose alma mater was also Kyoto University, later went on to become finance minister.
