TOKYO, June 5 (UPI) -- Yoshihiko Noda, known as a fiscal conservative, has been chosen as Japan's next finance minister by new Prime Minister Naoto Kan.
Noda had served as a deputy finance minister under Yukio Hatoyama, who resigned as prime minister in the controversy over relocating a U.S. military base, the BBC reported.
Noda, 52, supports Kan's call for higher taxes and spending cuts to reduce Japan's national debt, the biggest in the industrial world.
Kan is to replace eight members of the Cabinet and keep two: Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada and Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa, Kyodo reported.
As the DPJ prepares to announce the full Cabinet Tuesday, a Kyodo poll showed support for the party had risen to more than 36 percent, from 15.6 percent in May.
The Yomiuri Shimbun reported Yoshito Sengoku, national policy minister, will likely be named chief Cabinet secretary and deputy prime minister.
Yukio Edano, state minister of government revitalization in the Cabinet of outgoing Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, is to replace Ichiro Ozawa as secretary general of the DPJ.
