TOKYO (MNI) - The Japanese government has nominated a university professor as a candidate to succeed Bank of Japan policy board member Atsushi Mizuno, whose five-year term expires on Dec. 2, a ruling party official said on Thursday.

The government has notified parliament about its nomination of Ryuzo Miyao, a 45-year-old economics professor specializing in macro-economic policy at Kobe University in western Japan, effective in late March next year when he plans to leave his current job, the official said.

His nomination is expected to be approved in both houses of the Diet during the current 36-day extraordinary session that ends on Nov. 30, he said.

Unlike candidates for the top three positions at the BOJ -- governor and his two deputies -- nominees for the other board member positions would not need to testify in parliamentary hearings, he added.

Miyao could not be reached for comments.

The usual nine-member BOJ board will have two vacancies again, at least until late March 2010, after Mizuno, a former private-sector economist, leaves the BOJ board.

The BOJ already has a vacancy left by the promotion in March 2008 of board member Kiyohiko Nishimura to one of the two deputy governor positions at the central bank.

The government hasn't notified of any candidates for the position left open by Nishimura's promotion, the official at the Democratic Party of Japan said.

Whoever fills this position, possibly with an academic background, will only serve for the remainder of the five-year term, which ends on April 7, 2010.

The DPJ has been opposed to former MOF officials taking up jobs at the BOJ policy board, with the party demanding the separation of fiscal from monetary policies. It has also been adamant that the appointment of a former senior Finance Ministry official would undermine the BOJ's independence.

When Toshihiko Fukui retired at the end of his five-year term as BOJ governor in March 2008, his deputy Toshiro Muto, the top candidate to succeed him, didn't get the job because he was formerly a vice finance minister, even though he had served at the bank for five years.

Career central banker Masaaki Shirakawa was hurriedly called back from academia and was made one of the two BOJ deputy governors. The new BOJ leadership had to start without an appointed head until Shirakawa was quickly promoted to the top position in April 2008.

Six months later Hirohide Yamaguchi was promoted to deputy governor from executive director to fill one of the two vacancies.

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