Less than a month after US President George W Bush ditched his top economic team, Japan is following suit in the hope of warding off the rise of the yen.

The leadership of the finance ministry's international division - the job usually termed "Japan's financial diplomat" - is passing to Zembei Mizoguchi from Haruhiko Kuroda.

Initially there is expected to be little shift in policy.

Mr Mizoguchi is unlikely to be any more vocal than Mr Kuroda in his concern over the damage a strong yen could do to Japan's vital export sector.

But with domestic demand still flat, and deflation - steadily falling prices - eating away at any prospect of recovery, Mr Mizoguchi's role will be an important one.

He has been one of the key voices in the finance ministry warning against the rise in the yen.

Off the boil

For the moment, Japan's trade still looks healthy, with exports in November rising 19.2% from the previous year to 4.6 trillion yen (�24bn; $38.2bn).

But since then the changeover in the US has catalysed a slide in the dollar.

Currency dealers bet that Mr O'Neill's replacement, John Snow, will allow the administration to back away from the US's traditional "strong dollar" policy.

Weak economic data, rising oil prices and the fear of war in Iraq are also contributing to the slide, which saw the yen strengthen to above 120 to the dollar on Monday for the first time in a month.

"Mr Yen"

Mr Kuroda has been in post longer than most Japanese bureaucrats, kept there to avoid a shake-up while the government was formulating its reform plans for bank bad debts and other problems.

Mr Mizoguchi, 58, was the hot tip as his successor.

If he does start to use his roving role to comment on the yen - and Vice Finance Minister Toshiro Muto hinted on Tuesday that "appropriate action" was on the cards - he will be following in the footsteps of a famous predecessor.

Before Mr Kuroda took over, the job was filled by Eisuke Sakakibara, whose note-perfect timing when commenting on what currency speculators were doing earned him the nickname "Mr Yen".